Just Another Normal Operation
by LadyDunla
Summary: Morgana may be dealt with, but Mordred is still very much alive. And Section D now have a traitor of their own to contend with. Renewed cooperation between Camelot and MI-5 could solve both their problems, or they could make it ten times worse. Sequel to Just Another Normal Day.
1. Chapter 1

**Hello, dear readers. If you've read Just Another Normal Day, welcome back. If you didn't, it might be a good idea to read that first. **

**I wasn't planning on having this story up so soon already, but thanks to VelocityGirl1980, who gave me a lot of ideas, the plot bunnies came hopping in. And it's ridiculously hot here, heat causes sleepless nights and sleepless nights cause a lot of even more ideas, so here we are.**

**Enjoy!**

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_**Just Another Normal Operation**_

**Chapter 1**

**Merlin**

It was just another normal day in the life of Merlin, the now-not-so-very-secret-anymore warlock of Camelot. And that meant that he was on a hunt or, more accurately, Merlin was riding after Arthur while the king was trying to find some game he could shoot for his own amusement. Yes, of course they were on a hunt. They always went hunting when Arthur was fed up with the boring business of state and the even more boring nobles on the council – meaning: Lord Harold – and whenever he saw the chance, he would sneak out to spend some time out of doors, doing one of the things he loved best: shooting defenceless animals for his own fun, a pastime Ros Myers had rightly condemned as a "bloody waste of time when there are still bandits to be caught."

Much had changed in the last two months, the warlock pondered as he sat in the saddle, steering his horse after Arthur's, waiting for something to happen. Morgana had died eight weeks ago to the day and while Merlin still felt some grief and regret over the manner of her passing, he would have to admit that the long-term effects of working with the spooks were good. Morgana was no longer plaguing the kingdom, Agravaine had been dealt with and they had come out of it with the friendship of Section D.

But, like Lucas had once pointed out to Marlin, friendship was probably overrated. Strangely enough Arthur and Lucas himself seemed to be the only ones to have ended up with a permanent friendship, most likely because of the things they'd gone through together. The Senior Case Officer was still uneasy around Merlin though, but the feeling was mutual. Some things could not be forgotten so easily. And as much as the warlock regretted acting as he had, he also knew that Lucas was justified in behaving as he now did. As much as they'd want it, they could not make time turn back on itself and undo what had been done.

Relations with Ros of course were even more glacial, if that was even possible. As far as Merlin was aware, Lucas and Harry were the only ones who even tried to put up with her, although Arthur and Ros seemed to have agreed to tolerate each other's presence, again a result of the operation that had eventually led to Agravaine's execution and Morgana's death.

Merlin thought about the whole friendship thing and then changed his mind, because he himself had ended up in a strange kind of friendship with Jo Portman. He had gone over to London a few times to watch films, chat and acquaint himself better with the twenty-first century. He found he liked to spend time there and as long as George – and Arthur – didn't mind that the other manservant was taking over his duties occasionally, he could keep up those visits. London was an interesting place, very different from Camelot, but intriguing. These visits often involved staying over for the night, which had given both Arthur and Ros very wrong ideas. And the more Merlin and Jo tried to deny them, the more insistent the king and Section Chief became about it.

'You're quiet, Merlin,' Arthur observed. 'Missing Jo again?'

'No.' Too defensive, he knew immediately. 'I was thinking.'

Arthur's face lit up in a manner that reminded the warlock all too much of Ros Myers about to come up with a sarcastic put-down. The king of Camelot had spent all too much time in her company during the joined operation if he was now copying her habits. 'Well, don't think too hard,' he teased. 'I wouldn't want you to hurt yourself.'

Merlin grimaced, but he supposed he deserved that after having said the exact same thing to Arthur a few weeks ago after the Lamia incident. And how he wished they'd had Ros with them then. He had no doubt that the spy would just have shot the Lamia the moment she suspected something wasn't right and to hell with the consequences.

'Well, at least _I_ can think,' he shot back. 'Because I, unlike you, am not a dollophead.'

'No, because you are a clotpole.' Arthur had definitely gotten better at this whole insulting game.

'That's my word!' Merlin protested.

'And it suits you perfectly,' the king finished with a smirk, winning this round of the game. But Merlin didn't mind; he'd get back at him sooner rather than later.

And besides, he was far too glad that they were bantering again like they had done before, because not that long ago it had seemed like that part of their friendship – or their entire friendship, for that matter – had been lost forever. But Arthur had kept his word about having an open conversation and two days after the feast they had locked themselves into Arthur's room for a lengthy discussion.

Merlin had been forced to confess a number of facts that he was not very proud of, Arthur had done an awful lot of shouting and, as time progressed, Merlin's temper had gotten the better of him as well. There had been a great number of objects – far too much – that had ended up on the other side of the room as a result – and some of them, to Merlin's great surprise, had been thrown by him – and by the end of the afternoon both king and servant had been rather hoarse, but the compromise was born and that more than made up for all the mess and the sore throat, in Merlin's opinion.

They would keep his magic a secret for a while longer from everyone except Gwen – who had fortunately taken it rather well – and everyone who already knew about it anyway. Hopefully this would be a temporary thing, though, because Arthur was launching an experiment. He allowed the Druids to return to Camelot and abolished the death penalty for those who practised magic, with the exception that they could still be executed if their magic had endangered or threatened what Arthur now, in true spooks fashion, called national security. The normal punishment for practising magic was now a fine or a number of days in the dungeons, depending on how serious the magic had been.

It would be a test, Arthur had said, to see if magic truly could be used for good and not just for evil, as the king had seen for most of his life. Especially the return of the Druids, the only group of people who were now officially allowed to do magic – the announcement of this had made quite a number of noble jaws drop – was important for this. And Arthur needed the reassurance, because of his bad experiences with it. Merlin understood this, but he could not escape the feeling that this was not what he had really hoped for, although it was undoubtedly a step in the right direction. Fortunately he was allowed to use his magic to save Arthur's backside and to do his chores, as long as he kept it out of sight, which was second nature to him anyway.

'Well, being a dollophead is worse than being a clotpole,' he shot back at Arthur, happy to continue the banter.

Arthur snorted. 'And how would you know, _Mer_lin?'

But this time he had a retort ready and there was no way he could see that the king could wriggle his way out of this one. 'I invented the words,' he pointed out with a brilliant smile.

And true to expectations Arthur Pendragon reacted with his best fish-on-dry-land imitation, temporary lost for words. It would not last long, Merlin knew, but for just a few minutes he had the pleasure of seeing his king search for a retort that would shut his servant well and truly up, but he came up with absolutely nothing.

But Arthur did not have the time to think of something. They had been distracted from their surroundings by their game of witticisms, the hunt all but forgotten, not that there would be much game left in this area after their loud voices had disturbed the peace. And that was a mistake, because Merlin should have known by now that nothing good ever came from a hunt. There was always something that went wrong, whether it were magical beasts, vengeful sorcerers or just plain old bandits.

Today it was the last category. A group of about a dozen bandits jumped out of the trees, crying wordless battle cries as they charged.

Merlin cursed, but did not lose his nerve. He had lived through too many attacks to start panicking in such situations. He could deal with this, especially now that he had Arthur's permission to use his magic in the case of an emergency and this surely would count as one. So he threw his hand forward and flung three of their attackers backwards in one go, even as Arthur's crossbow took out a fourth.

It had of course rather dented Arthur's ego when he had first realised he had not killed quite as many bandits and magical creatures as he had previously thought, but Merlin believed him to be more or less over it now. And they did work well together. Merlin himself felt better too now he didn't have to pretend to be the useless one any longer.

He had hardly finished that thought when something hard came into contact with the back of his head. The warlock only remembered that they had been surrounded and that he really ought to have watched his back a bit more when the ground already rushed up to meet him and his horse had somehow disappeared from under him.

He fell hard on the ground. Oh, he did not think he would have broken anything, but he would have a few nasty bruises if he came out of this again. And he had hit his head quite hard as well, so that for a few moments he was too confused to do anything. He didn't think he could have done something anyway, because there were all kinds of stars swimming over his vision and it was far too difficult to see anything other than that.

But Arthur was still there, alone and heavily outnumbered. And although Arthur himself might hate it with a passion that he had a kind of glorified magical bodyguard, he had one and said glorified bodyguard was not allowed to sit back and do nothing while his protégé was in danger. And so he forced himself to see something, _anything_ at all, by sheer willpower.

True to expectations the king had gotten himself into quite a tight spot. He was surrounded by five bandits and, in true Arthurian fashion, was trying to fight all five of them at once. Arthur was quite possibly the best swordsman in all the five kingdoms, but even he was not invincible and could not hold out against five heavily armed bandits – why did they always have to be so heavily armed anyway? – indefinitely.

Merlin moaned in exasperation and forced himself to get to his feet to prevent anyone from killing off the king he had fought so hard to protect for years now, only to find that someone beat him to it.

The remaining bandits were flown through the air and landed on the ground. They did not get up again and Merlin might have believed them dead if he had not seen their chests rise and fall with their breathing. But at least the threat had been removed and that was what counted. And after having been on the receiving end of so many bandit attacks, he had quite lost the ability to feel sorry for them.

But who had done this? Both Merlin and Arthur turned their heads simultaneously to see to whom they owed that timely interference. The warlock saw a young man with a kind smile and dark hair underneath the trees at the edge of the clearing in which they had been ambushed. And Merlin's heart stopped. He knew that face, even though it had been years since he had last seen it. But it was him, of that he was certain. And his presence here could not in any way bode well for Arthur or Camelot. _I shall never forgive this, Emrys, and I shall never forget._

The king himself had recognised their rescuer as well and reacted with the same amount of shock as his servant, albeit for completely different reasons. 'Mordred,' he whispered.

**Ros**

It was just another day in the life of Ros Myers, Section Chief of Section D, MI-5. And that meant that she was busy trying to prevent some UN special negotiator by the name of Claude Denizet, an arrogant bastard who at some point during his life must be wrongfully informed that the world revolved around him, from getting a bullet embedded in his brain. What was unusual though was that Section D was supposed to keep him safe from an MI-6 renegade and that she had to give in to bloody blackmail to ensure a satisfactory outcome for most people involved. And everyone who knew her could tell that this turn of events did not put her in the best of moods.

And how had this even ended up being such a mess? Of course it had all started off with the Israelis and Palestinians being at each other's throat again because of the umpteenth attack the one had launched on the other and the endless retaliations that followed such attacks. That had resulted in the emergency peace conference, here in London, that everyone with a tiny bit of common sense could tell right away was doomed to fail before it had even begun. But fine, if the Foreign Secretary wanted MI-5 to see to the safety of the participants, including the esspecially flown in UN negotiator who seemed to be under the impression that he was God's gift to mankind, then that was okay with her. She would make sure no terrorists would bomb the place or would assassinate any of the delegates and they would be left to tear each other, preferably verbally, to shreds to their heart's content.

She should have known by now that things had gone far too smoothly. Ros was just starting to feel pleased with how well it all went when Malcolm alerted her to the fact that some piece of highly classified military equipment was being sold on the internet. The seller was a kid of sixteen years old by the name of Dean Mitchell, living alone with his mother, who had absolutely no right to even know about such weaponry, never mind that he had it in his possession. Malcolm had named it an assassin's best friend, the kind of gun you had to point at a moving vehicle and all the electronics would fail.

Ros had grown rather nervous at that, even though she would never be heard to admit to such a thing out loud. But such a device did not coincidentally turn up in the public domain only days before a highly sensitive summit in the same city, especially not when aforementioned summit was trying to bring together two countries who were more likely remove the other from the face of the earth rather than to talk peace. Coincidence was up there with Santa Claus: it didn't exist.

Angrily she sent Lucas to buy the thing back and sincerely hoped that was the end of it. Of course it wasn't. In the following hours she learned that Dean Mitchell had stolen the thing from a rogue MI-6 operative Michael Sands, who had spent too many years in the Middle East and who was having a solution of his own in mind as to how this summit was to be successful, namely by killing Claude Denizet, whom the Palestinians apparently didn't trust. Mr Sands had listened in to every single bloody phone call they made and had, so they learned, already used the weapon the kid had stolen to assassinate a photographer who had probably shot pictures of something he wasn't supposed to see.

The truth of that assumption was proven when they found the cd with photos he had carried on his person. Unfortunately the cd was damaged and the files on it were only half complete, showing only the left part of the one picture Malcolm had been able to retrieve, which featured a very pissed off Claude Denizet.

Jo's little trip to the hotel the pictures had been taken from and Malcolm's unsurpassed skills in hacking into systems he wasn't supposed to hack into made sure that they found out that the room Claude Denizet had been in had been booked by a Mr Michael Smith, also known as Sands.

'Stephen Fitzmaurice was killed, because he witnessed Sands threatening Denizet,' Ros realised.

It was Connie who asked the million dollar question. 'So, why go after Dean Mitchell?' Lucas had been on the run with the kid and his mother, because there was a hell of a lot more interest in that gun than was healthy for anyone. Her colleague was off the map, trying to keep a low profile while they worked out what to do. All this made Ros's skin crawl and set her teeth on edge.

'Because Dean Mitchell witnessed the assassination,' Ros replied. Lucas had somehow gotten that information out of young Mr Mitchell and had alerted them to it. And then after witnessing a crime, he had been as stupid as to make off with the murder weapon, which he had then sold on the internet. Ros was torn between admiring him and thinking him the biggest fool to ever walk the earth. He had no idea what he had gotten into and just how far these people were willing to go.

'But he couldn't possibly know what it meant,' Ben said. And he had a point with that. Because yes, the kid had witnessed a murder and stolen a gun, but this unhealthy interest in the kid's living or dying was too exaggerated for just that. And Ros may not like Ben very much, but he was right.

_I wish Harry was here_. The though sneaked into her head before she could stop it. But Harry had disappeared off to some meeting or other he didn't want to tell her about, like he had done on regular intervals since the market bombings and Ros did not like it one bit. He usually told her everything and that he didn't do so now was cause for serious – strictly professional of course – concern.

_Stop wallowing, Myers!_ she snapped at herself. _Focus!_ She may not like the situation, but that didn't mean she could slack in her duties. But she could not deny either that with both Harry and Lucas gone, she felt a bit forlorn.

She pressed the mental mute button on it and forced herself to start thinking. 'Unless Dean Mitchell has something else we don't know about, some other evidence,' she said thoughtfully.

'The full photograph,' Connie realised and the last pieces of the puzzle fell into place.

It turned out that there had been a memory stick in the rucksack the gun had been in. The rucksack however had been dumped by the kid in some scrap yard, so Ros sent Lucas and Dean on a mission to retrieve it, which they did. They got the stick, only by the skin of their teeth, but they lost the mother, who got kidnapped by Michael Sands to pressure Ros, whom he had just threatened, to give up the kid.

By the time Ros finally laid eyes on the full photograph, including the Foreign Secretary in the ploy, she was ready to explode. The Foreign Secretary however proved to not know what Sands's idea of a solution really was and seemed to think that he meant blackmail by reasonable pressure to get Denizet out of the way. Ros resisted the urge to snap at her that reasonable did not exist with people like Sands, who never thought the word solution without the word violent in front of it. The realisation was dawning on the Foreign Secretary now, but it was too late to call Sands off, even if she had known how to contact him.

_Bloody politicians_. Lucas on the run with a kid, the kid's mother taken hostage by Sands, Denizet about to be assassinated at the summit by way of a "permanent solution." At least Harry was back on the Grid and between them they managed to work out a solution of their own. They saved Claude Denizet at the last possible second, forced him to resign – which he did not feel too uncomfortable about having just had a gun pointed at his head – and encrypted the memory stick again – so that no one would ever find out it had been opened in the first place – which Ros then returned to Sands in exchange for Sarah Mitchell, Dean's mother. It was the best outcome she could have hoped for, but it still felt ridiculously like giving in and that did not sit well with her.

So the following morning she was waiting with Jo as Denizet pulled a very distressed looking Sarah out of the car. Ros would instantly admit that she was not the kindest woman to walk the earth, but the state of the kid's mother made her want to throttle the man who had abducted her with her bare hands, if not for that, then for a number of other reasons.

'Don't try anything,' Sands said. 'I have guns pointed at her head from three different windows.' Sarah whimpered at hearing that. Ros merely glared at the speaker, although he might not see that through the sunglasses she was wearing, put on especially for the purpose of keeping that man from reading her like a book.

Fortunately Jo, who was much better suited to deal with people, took care of the woman and guided her into the car, leaving only Sands and Ros to talk. She had no doubt that the guns he had mentioned would now be pointed at her head, but she could not care less. If he shot her, he would have Harry after him and that was a thing best avoided. _Although only heaven knows what Harry is after now_, a voice in the back of her head commented. He had gone off to one of his mysterious meetings, again, and left Ros in charge. _What the hell is he up to?_

But this was neither the time nor the place. 'Your road to peace proved to be somewhat unorthodox,' she commented casually, suppressing the rage she felt. That would not help her here.

Sands seemed wholly unconcerned. 'It seemed to achieve its goal,' he said. 'I understand Claude Denizet will resign later today.'

'Well, a voluntary resignation,' Ros pointed out, although it wasn't entirely voluntary. But Sands didn't need to know that and Ros was not in the mood to share any more information with him than she strictly needed to. 'Slightly more elegant than a bullet in the brain.'

'Without the threat of one, we would never have achieved the other,' Sands countered. 'It's the Middle East way.'

This made all her alarm bells go off. This felt like a threat and even though protocol dictated that officers of the Service did not make decisions based on intuition, experience had taught her that dismissing intuition was often the most fatal mistake an officer could make. Dean was not safe, not yet, and they needed to get the boy out of the country as soon as possible.

'You're taking credit for this?' She had to work hard not to snap.

'We should both take credit for this.' The bloody man was even smiling. 'The perfect team.' The worst thing about this was that he was completely sincere. He really meant what he said. _Narcissist, violent dreamer_, Harry had called him. It seemed to sum Sands up to perfection.

The Section Chief was tempted to vomit on his shoes. 'Well, much as the idea _thrills_ me, I think our business is done,' she said dismissively. If she couldn't strangle him, she at least wanted him gone, preferably before he could make good on that unspoken threat to kill Dean Mitchell anyway. He had shown his intent towards the kid more than enough when he sent hit squad after hit squad after Dean and Lucas. Thank goodness her colleague was such an expert in the field or this may have ended very differently.

'A pleasure working with you, officer Myers.' He walked back to his own car and then turned just as he was about to get in. 'We've always been absolutely honest with each other, haven't we?'

He got in the car and drove away as the dread settled comfortably in Ros's stomach. _He knows. He knows he's been lied to._

Strangely enough this also reminded her also of Harry's strange behaviour of late. He had not been completely honest either, had evaded her questions about what meetings he was going to, about why he disappeared at the most inopportune moments. Her resolve strengthened. As soon as they got Sarah and Dean Mitchell out of the country, she would take Lucas with her to her boss's office and demand some answers.

Her sense of dread was proven right, but in the most disastrous way possible. Dean Mitchell was shot as he was struggling with Lucas, because he didn't want to leave a country and had tried to make a run for it. Ros tried to block out his mother's keening wails as she gathered her son's dead body up in her arms, trying to look anywhere but there. She had failed and she knew it.

So, she did what she did best. She glanced around the station from they had been meaning to make the small family take a train towards the airport and from there out of Britain. Her gaze lingered on the escalator across the hall, where a very familiar figure was standing with a bag on his shoulder that could contain only one thing. _Michael bloody Sands_. He turned around and then nodded at her respectfully. Ros's fists clenched in frustration, knowing he'd be long gone by the time she'd get where he was now. She might never even get to him.

This needn't have happened if she had gotten a hold of Harry. She'd have been more comfortable if they'd had some security people to help out, given the fact that Sands was still after the boy, but Harry had not been able to authorise it because he had gone off to God only knows where and she hadn't dared to take the risk of waiting any longer, choosing speed over safety. Dean had paid the price for that. _Where the hell is Harry?_

Lucas came to stand next to her. He looked devastated, even though he tried to hide it and Ros suspected he had come closer to this operation than he should have. But she was not going to comment on it when she herself may have been guilty of doing just that. And they would need to focus on what was the matter with their boss. The way he'd been acting led her to believe that he was in deep trouble somehow.

'What do we do now, boss?' he asked softly as the medics and police people started to flood the place. Ros had the good grace not to notice the somewhat forlorn expression on his face he was trying his hardest not to show.

_Find Sands, kill him and then move on_. She should have known better than to trust a man who did not believe in peaceful solutions. Someone had to die and Dean Mitchell had been the victim, simply because he knew too much. It happened all the time in their job, but that boy had not been in this line of work. Even for all his thieving and lying, he had been an innocent. Ros knew people who deserved death, but this kid had not been one of them.

She suppressed the by now very strong urge to go after Sands and turned to Lucas. Their job was done now anyway. 'We are going to Harry,' she told him. 'And we're going to get some answers.'

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**Just an introduction chapter this was, really, but hopefully it sets the tone for the rest. I am not sure when the next chapter will be up, because the next four weeks will be rather busy, but I'll try not to make you wait too long. **

**And oh yes, for story's sake Harry has not yet briefed Ros and Lucas on Sugarhorse.**

**In the meantime, please review? I'd love to hear your thoughts.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

**Lucas**

Ros reminded him of a soldier marching for battle, Lucas observed as they crossed the Grid to Harry's office. The Section Chief was taking long, decisive strides and she had the unyielding facial expression to match. And she would be right to feel this angry. He himself could all too vividly recall the sight of Dean Mitchell's body in the lift. Heaven knew the kid had been cocky, annoying and suffering from an extreme case of almost criminal stupidity, but he had not deserved this. And he had cared about his mother, deeply so. The outcome of this situation was in no way satisfactory.

And Ros took it even harder than he, but that was because she believed herself to be responsible for the kid. Michael Sands had killed someone she believed herself to be responsible for and that, as the Senior Case Officer knew all too well, was something he would strongly advise against. He recalled just how angry she had looked when Morgana had harmed him. She had pulled the trigger with an expression of icy hatred and loathing on her face, watching with a grim satisfaction as the witch fell.

'Lucas, keep up, will you?' Ros's annoyed voice called him back to the here and now and he took some bigger steps to catch up to her. She was still mad, but not just at Michael Sands. A large part was reserved for Harry and his mysterious disappearances that had begun during the Al Qaeda operation that had led eventually to the market bombing. Or, more specifically, these strange meetings had started after Lucas had told him he remembered the Russians had interrogated him about an operation codenamed Sugarhorse. Harry at first had denied it, but had then asked him to remember what had happened at the time that it was mentioned.

His fists clenched of their own volition. Harry had no idea what had been done to him at that time. He had not even asked, so Lucas assumed that he had no interest in knowing. And that, along with his refusal to not tell him what this Sugarhorse even was, had been sufficient to destroy most of the trust that had slowly begun to grow again after the conclusion of Operation Camelot, as Ros had mockingly dubbed it. Something was wrong and Harry was in some kind of trouble, that he was certain of. What he was not so certain of was if he had any faith left in his boss. These days he avoided Harry's office if he could and took his reports to Ros.

He had not dared to discuss Sugarhorse with her, especially not in relation to Harry's many off comms disappearances lately, not even now they were friends, but Ros had not ended up being where she was by being stupid. She was intelligent and would have worked out quite a lot herself. But it was not like her to distrust Harry or question his actions. Unlike Lucas, Ros's faith in Harry was absolute and she would only ever question him when something serious forced her into this, like the death of Dean Mitchell.

She forcefully slid the door open and beckoned Lucas to follow her. 'Where the hell were you?' she demanded, not bothering with a greeting of any kind.

Harry had been studying some file in front of him. 'Are you familiar with the concept of knocking, Rosalind?' he retorted, half-weary, because by now he should know that no one in this section ever bothered with it. It didn't stop him from commenting on it regularly, though.

Ros, as expected, ignored him. 'Where the bloody hell were you today?' she snarled at the boss. She had lost someone she felt had been her responsibility for today and she laid the blame at Harry's doorstep, not quite unjustly, Lucas realised. He himself would have been more at ease if there were at least some security people around, but they had not been able to, so they had intended to make the reunion brief and get mother and son on a train quickly as possible. Just how well that had gone, was obvious.

'Sit down,' Harry said. He still sounded weary and it started to dawn on Lucas that his fatigue might not be the result of Ros's lack of knocking habits.

Ros had no intention of obeying. 'Dean Mitchell is dead,' she reported brusquely. She didn't go as far as to accuse Harry that he might still be alive if she could have gotten her hands on some security people, but she didn't need to. Harry was as skilled in reading between lines as they all were.

'Sit down, Rosalind,' Harry repeated. There was a tone of annoyance underneath the weariness and Lucas thought it better to obey, to give the good example. He did not think Ros would follow it however.

To be honest, he was not sure what he was doing here. On the rare occasion that Ros Myers had a bone to pick with Harry, she did it behind closed, soundproof doors and without witnesses. This was a hell of a change from her usual behaviour and he was not sure he understood it.

And he was not sure either that he even wanted to be here. Harry and Ros seemed to be preparing for the shouting match of the century and he for one was none too anxious to get caught in the fallout. Yes, he wanted to know what was going on and if it was in some way related to the mysterious Sugarhorse, but another part of him just wanted to take himself home to get some much needed rest. Heaven knew he felt like he needed it after the events of hardly two hours ago. Dealing with Harry's strange behaviour was not high on his to-do list right now. He felt at least as tired as his boss sounded and in his current mood he did not think himself able to handle the bitter truth of Harry having lied to him again. Yes, he had admitted that he had not told Lucas the truth about Sugarhorse, but he still had failed to mention what it was and that was something that had not escaped Lucas's notice.

'I don't want to sit down!' Ros snapped. 'I want answers. You've been pulling disappearing acts on us ever since the sodding Al Qaeda operation and I want to know why.' The tone was copied from Harry, Lucas knew. It was his non-negotiable voice. Ros must have been hanging around him for too long.

Harry's eyes sparkled in an anger that drove the exhaustion away so fast that if he'd have blinked, he would have missed out on it. 'Then you'll have to sit down, Rosalind,' he snapped, slamming a fist on the desk for good measure.

For a moment it looked like Ros was just going to ignore that order, as was her way, but she changed her mind and took a chair, still with a face that spelled trouble for whoever it was directed at. Lucas was glad it wasn't him this time. The Section Chief folded her arms over her chest and silently demanded that Harry started to explain himself. Had she not been this mad, she would probably have realised she was crossing more lines than her colleague cared to count.

But Harry did not seem to be overly bothered by it and this was a surprise. Things must be bad if he behaved in such a way. Lucas may not be Harry's biggest fan right now, but there was still that stupid and irrational part of him that craved Harry's trust almost over everything else. Part of him wanted the head of Section D to confide in him, the way he had done before Russia.

Harry leaned slightly forward and folded his hands. 'Years ago,' he began. 'As the Berlin wall was collapsing, Richard Dolby, Hugo Prince and I conceived the most complex network of spies ever to have infiltrated the Russian political system.' Lucas recognised the names. Richard Dolby seemed to have made it his personal responsibility to thwart Section D or, more specifically, Ros at every turn. Hugo Prince was a spy legend, who had died sometime while Lucas had been a special guest of the FSB. From what he had heard, the man had been a highly skilled spy. So had Dolby been in his day. And Harry, Lucas may not trust him, but he knew better than to doubt his spying skills.

_Sugarhorse_, a voice in the back of his head whispered. _He's talking about Sugarhorse_. He had to be, because that seemed to be the link for everything.

He meant to ask, hardly capable of holding back the question, but Harry was in full briefing mode now. Lucas doubted he would have heard him even if he had asked. 'We recruited young, pro-western minds in all areas with one aim: to ensure that in twenty years we had moles at the very highest levels of Russian life, moles who could limit or destroy the Russian nuclear threat.'

It sounded like an impossibility to Lucas. A sleeper network of so many spies, capable of doing such damage… It would have to be huge, the biggest operation MI-5 had ever launched. He could not even begin to think how highly classified such an operation would have to be. At any rate it would be way past his clearance level, and even past Ros's as well.

'We have that capability,' Harry announced. 'Operation Sugarhorse, which has remained entirely uncompromised…'

Only that it hadn't. If it had remained uncompromised, then there would have been no way that the FSB would questioned him about the Sugarhorse operation. 'Until I told you that the Russians had interrogated me about it,' he finished.

The true implications only slowly started seeping through his brain. Because if the Russians had known about Sugarhorse, they were unlikely to have found out about it all by themselves. Sugarhorse must have been as highly classified as possibly could. The FSB would not have access to such a thing, not even for all their clever tricks. They could only have found out if someone had told them, someone who was working with MI-5. A traitor.

The bile was rising up in his throat and he was fighting the urge to throw up. Because this could also mean that his capture in Moscow was not such a coincidence as he had believed at the time. And maybe he had just wanted to believe it, because the alternative was too horrible. Now it was something he would have to reckon with. Someone on his own side had sold him out, had made him go through eight solid years of isolation and torture. Someone on his own side had deliberately betrayed him.

On the other hand this was a relief as well. He may not have been willing to contemplate the thought of being sold out, but he had done it anyway and Harry's name had popped up more than once in the category of possible candidates. The feeling had only been enforced by the isolation. It had not helped the case that Harry had not appeared to be taking much trouble to get his officer out. _Harry sweated blood to get you back here. Colleagues are okay_. It had become something of a personal mantra, even if he had not always been convinced of the truth of it. In a way he was now, because Harry would never have sold him out to the Russians if it endangered such a sensitive operation, not unless he was a traitor himself and that was something he would never believe, not of Harry Pearce.

The relief washed over him even as the dread settled comfortably in his stomach, because someone _had_ sold him out, someone he would have trusted to be on his side. He could only just stop himself from vomiting on the spot. Ros would never let him live it down, even if he would live up to her expectations of friends being annoying. Throwing up would certainly annoy her.

His mind was going round, not coming up with anything even remotely useful. He blamed the exhaustion.

Harry however did not seem to have noticed Lucas's inner turmoil. 'Yes,' he nodded. He sounded compassionate and Lucas forced himself back under control. If there was one thing he could not deal with, it was pity. Heaven knew he had already been treated like a porcelain doll after the Camelot operation more than enough. He hardly needed to give Harry a reason to make it ten times worse. 'And I didn't know how the Russians knew about Sugarhorse until now. I am waiting for intel from Moscow, which I should receive in the next couple of days. This will allow me to expose a mole within MI-5.' A traitor, but even Harry seemed loath to use the word. 'When I expose the mole, all hell will break loose, both here and in Russia.' He looked from Lucas to Ros and back again. 'I'll need both your support.' Harry Pearce didn't do begging, but this was as close as he would ever come to it. It was a plea for help. It was spoken in stiff and almost formal words, but it was a plea nonetheless. He must be deeper in trouble because of this than Lucas had realised.

'Anything you need, Harry,' he heard himself say and he found that he meant it. There was a part that still wanted his boss's approval, although that had somewhat lessened after Harry's initial denial about Sugarhorse. But it was still there. It was not the main reason for speaking as he did, though. Because this was personal. Now that he knew almost for sure that someone had betrayed him to the FSB, leading to his eight years in hell, he wanted, _needed_, to know who it was and when he did know, he wanted to see them punished, preferably by his own hand, if Harry had left anything for him, that was.

'Anything at all,' Ros chimed in softly. She had been silent for the duration of the briefing, which was very unlike her, especially after her verbal explosion of hardly a few minutes ago. Lucas looked to the side only to see that she had gone pale and still, even though her eyes were still on full alert. He would not pretend to fully know his Section Chief – he doubted anyone ever truly could know all of Ros Myers – but he had come to know her better than most on the Grid in the past few months. It would be a safe bet to say that she regretted her harsh words, even though she would never be heard to say such a thing. Ros didn't do apologising, ever.

Harry seemed relieved. 'Thank you.' The words sounded as if they came right from the heart, something that was not standard Pearce practise as far as Lucas was aware. 'Thank you both.'

It was both a thanks and a dismissal and Lucas knew not to push the point. He could not have pushed it even if he wanted to. His mind had descended into chaos and he was too tired and too shocked to bring any form of order back into it. So he just nodded, got up and walked out of the office with every intention of getting a takeaway, going home and hoping to find some sleep if he could.

Ros exited after him, sliding the door shut behind her. 'Next time you tell me,' she ordered. She had not cooled down, not in the slightest, but there was something there that might be bordering on concern.

He managed a nod. God knew it had been hard enough to keep silent about it for two solid months, to have no one to talk to. 'Promise,' he said.

Ros favoured him with a glare. 'You'd better. Now, how about a decent takeaway?'

The Senior Case Officer felt the corners of his mouth curl up. As much as he would like the rest, he liked the prospect of company more, especially after recent events. His own thoughts would not be making for pleasurable company, not tonight. And Ros could be good company if the mood took her. 'Aren't you afraid I will annoy you?'

She snorted. 'I have been reliably informed that's what friends are for.'

**Arthur**

'No.'

The result was an indignant sputtering coming from the other end of the room. 'Arthur, will you _please_ listen to me?' Merlin sounded almost desperate, but his pleas fell on deaf ears. 'You do not understand what you are talking about.'

Arthur, who had been picking up his sword before he went off to the training field, now had to suppress the urge, the rather strong urge, to haul the weapon in his servant's direction. He valued his friendship with the clumsy warlock – _not_ a sorcerer, as Merlin had pointed out on several occasions – but that paranoia of his he could have done without. 'Merlin, are you deaf?' he inquired. 'I believe I told you that I do not want to hear these accusations.'

It was one of those days that he should really have stayed in bed. Things were only going from bad to worse and this argument with his servant-slash-glorified-self-appointed-magical- bodyguard was just the last straw. It was bad enough that Guinevere had business out of town, business that for some reason took two entire weeks to conclude. Of course it was not her aunt's fault that she had been taken ill and it was perfectly logical for Guinevere to go and tend to her, but that did mean he would have to make do without her for two solid weeks, not a prospect he liked much. Then this day had begun with disaster. Merlin had tripped over his own feet, effectively assuring that the juice he had been about to serve did not end up in Arthur's mouth, but rather all over his face. Next he had forgotten to heat the bath water and then Lord Harold had come charging in with a long and altogether boring complaint about the noise the repairs of the roof above his head were making. Arthur had sent him away with a snapped remark of which Ros and Harry would have approved, reminding the man that if he wanted a roof over his head at all, he should let those men do their job or else he was welcome to get soaked in the first rain. It may even be that the word bloody had slipped into the speech.

In the midst of it all he had almost missed out on his servant's gloomy mood, almost. And since they were friends, he supposed he could ask what was the matter. He now started to wish – passionately – that he had not done so.

'For once in your life, could you just listen to me?' the warlock cried in exasperation.

But Arthur had no intention whatsoever of listening. 'No, Merlin, I will not,' he said forcefully as he rounded on him. 'How many times are we going to have this discussion? I told you that you can't just accuse people of treason. You have been wrong before.'

'As have you,' Merlin countered. It was a clear sign that he was angry, because normally he would not have used such a tone of voice with Arthur. But this was rapidly descending into a full-blown argument, the likes of which they'd not had since they had disagreed about Lucas's loyalties. Strangely enough they were now torn over the exact same subject, albeit it concerned a different person this time.

'Mordred has not done one single thing to deserve your low opinion.' Arthur knew his voice was dangerously low and had he been talking to anyone else, they would have run from this room already. Unfortunately Merlin was not anyone else. He was the clumsy servant who remained wholly unimpressed in the face of Arthur's foulest moods. Normally the king admired him for that, but not today.

'He is dangerous, Arthur.' Merlin was close to pleading.

And that was something that the king of Camelot did not understand. Yes, Merlin was as paranoid as they came apparently, but in Lucas's case he'd actually had some ground for his accusations, wrong though they had been. He had not been the only one to suspect that the spook had joined Morgana's side then and Lucas's behaviour had been dubious, even though Arthur was still of the opinion that if they had paid more attention, anyone could have realised that Lucas was as likely to betray his colleagues as Arthur was to ever dress up in skirts.

This, this was something else entirely and Arthur could not lay his finger on it. Merlin had reacted with hostility the moment he had recognised Mordred as their rescuer. Arthur on the other hand had reacted with surprise, but with joy as well. He remembered the small boy he had once rescued from his father's dungeons straight away. The boy had grown up and was now a young lad, who had saved his life.

He had urged Mordred to come with him to Camelot, seeing as the Druid did not have a real place to live. The Druids he had stayed with previously had been killed in a bandit attack some weeks ago and he had been the sole survivor. The lad had been wandering around ever since. So Arthur had taken him in. It was the right thing to do and the king felt somewhat responsible for him, especially after he had been the one to help him escape all those years ago. Besides, Mordred was a skilled swordsman and well on his way to become a good knight of Camelot.

Of course, if he were to be really honest, it was the lad's magic that really intrigued him. Apart from Merlin Arthur had never met anyone who used his magical powers for good and Mordred had used his to save them from what at the time appeared to be certain death. He liked to know more about the way magic worked and if it could truly be used for more than just evil and by other people than just Merlin.

Mordred was only happy to oblige and had answered Arthur's every question patiently. He seemed to enjoy life in Camelot and he was very popular with both knights and servants, with one alarming exception: Merlin. His servant had been taciturn and unsociable to the young man and Arthur could not figure out why that was for the life of him. It simply did not make sense. Merlin liked everyone as long as they did not give him a reason to dislike them. This kind of behaviour was out of character. Good grief, it had been Merlin who had first saved Mordred, before Arthur had even become involved. This simply refused to make sense and he had just about enough of it.

'So are you!' he shot back. 'So is Gwaine and Elyan and Leon. So is every knight in Camelot. It doesn't mean they are a danger to each other or to me!' He was getting impatient with it all. 'Merlin, really, he's a sorcerer just like you. I'd have expected you to get along with him, not to treat him like he has some kind of contagious disease!' He was severely tempted to throw his hands into the air in exasperation. 'What is the matter with you? He's using his magic for good! Wasn't that what you had been hoping for all along?' He shook his head, not giving the warlock a chance to react, which the other man had visibly been planning on. 'Tread very carefully here, Merlin,' he warned. 'You have been known to be wrong before.' And it had almost cost Lucas his life. He was loath to be in such a position again.

Merlin's eyes sparked with rage. 'So have you been!' he shot back.

The last thing Arthur wanted now was to be reminded of Agravaine's treason, so in true Arthurian tradition he ignored it. 'Why are you like this with Mordred?' he demanded, forcefully closing the door on memories of his uncle.

The shutters came down. 'I just know he's not good for you.'

There had to be more. Arthur was on the verge of losing his temper entirely, but he could hold himself back only just in time. Because there was something Merlin was not telling him; he knew that expression on his face. _I just know_ was not nearly good enough as an explanation. 'Merlin…' he said in his most warning voice.

'You're not going to like this,' Merlin warned him, still clearly hoping he would be able to escape this with all his limbs in their proper places. He was acting as if he was about to say something that would make Arthur explode. And that did not do very much to calm the king's nerves or temper.

'Out with it!' he ordered.

He was slowly rebuilding the friendship they'd once had, but it was a long and slow process. Arthur's faith in Merlin had been all but destroyed during the events that eventually had led to Morgana's death and there had been some moments that he seriously doubted that their friendship would ever recover from the blow that it had been dealt. In the worst moments he had even come to doubt if he even _wanted_ their friendship to recover from this.

But they were rebuilding it and that was what really counted now, Arthur believed. But he still didn't agree with everything Merlin said and did and that was sometimes putting at risk all the progress they'd made in weeks. This was one such occasion.

'It's prophecy.' The words came out too fast and too soft.

Arthur caught them nonetheless and it sent his blood to boiling point. 'Prophecy?' he exclaimed. 'Would that be the same kind of prophecy that predicted you would be the one to kill Morgana?' He had learned to be extremely cautious where things like prophecies were concerned. Thy were self-fulfilling more often than not and even if they were coming true without everyone helping them come true, then it could turn out very different from what everyone had expected. Because when Arthur had first heard that Merlin was supposed to be Morgana's doom, he had expected that this meant that Merlin would be the one to kill her. Instead Merlin had distracted Morgana to such an extent that Ros Myers got the chance to fire the bullet that had ended his half-sister's life. That was the very nature of a prophecy. And that Merlin seemed to have forgotten this, that did not only hurt, but it also made him effectively lose whatever was left of his patience.

'Don't you dare.' He all but snarled the words. 'How can you possibly think to know how prophecy will work out when it didn't exactly go according to plan last time we dealt with it?'

Merlin looked lost for words, but unfortunately that did not last longer than a second. 'Well, I think there's not much not to understand about this, Arthur. The dragon said that there would be an alliance between Mordred and Morgana, _united in evil_.'

Arthur frowned. 'The dragon said? Would that be the same dragon who burned half the city perhaps? And Morgana is _gone_, Merlin. There's no chance that they can be in an alliance. Don't you see?' He almost had thrown in a _bloody_ again to emphasise his point, but that was something better saved for London. As it was, the local nobility was more likely to get a heart attack and he should teach himself not to use it as much as Ros Myers, although, he pondered, it would be quite hard to use the word more than she did.

For another moment Merlin was speechless and Arthur took the opportunity this presented. 'You will not say another word against him.' Mordred had been the most loyal soul in Camelot since the day he stepped foot in it. He simply refused to believe that he was plotting treason and murder, just because of some prophecy that had been thwarted before it could even begin to unfold. Innocent until proven guilty. Mordred was a very long way of being proven guilty of anything, treason least of all. 'Merlin, that is an order,' he added sharply to pre-empt the protest he knew would be coming from his servant if he did not stop it. 'We will not discuss this again.' He hated this conversation, hated the need for it. When had Merlin become so paranoid and how come he had never noticed it before?

He shook his head as Merlin gathered up the clothes that needed washing and exited the room without another word. What he needed, what they both needed, was some time away from Camelot. Arthur thought he knew the perfect destination. It had been quite some time since he spent time in London.

* * *

**Don't worry, they'll meet again soon enough, probably in the next chapter. Anyway, I hope you liked it. I'm not too sure about how good the first part is, but I can't seem to be making more of it. Please review?**


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

**Lucas**

Lucas woke around three in the morning, screaming. It took him some time to realise that he was no longer in Russia, that there was no prison and that torture was not one of the things that was planned for him in the foreseeable future. This realisation did help some to calm his racing heart, but not much. The memory of the dream was still too fresh.

He tried to ban it to the back of his mind, to make it blend in with all the other nightmares already residing there, but the details refused to fade away and he could still see the interrogation room the moment he closed his eyes, could hear the interrogator's voice barking questions at him while she was having a smoke, even as her victim was all but drowning, and begging for mercy when he was not.

He took a deep breath and switched on the light that revealed his bedroom. There was not much furniture in it, just the bed, the bedside table and the wardrobe. Still, it was as different from Russian prison as it could possibly be and that in itself was all the reassurance he needed. He was safely in his own flat – because this, he knew, would never be anywhere even approaching home for him – and in no danger of being thrown in any kind of prison anytime soon.

He turned onto his back and studied the ceiling. He was not actively trying to remember the dream, but it came back to him all the same. Not surprisingly he had revisited the interrogation about Sugarhorse again. Lately, ever since Harry had told him about it three days ago, it had never been far from his mind. Whoever it was that had betrayed the existence of Sugarhorse to the Russians, they had sold him out as well and that was not something he was in danger of forgetting anytime soon.

There was one consolation, though. This traitor knew of the existence of Sugarhorse, but was clearly not briefed on the names of the assets that belonged to the network, otherwise those assets would long since have been killed and the FSB wouldn't have needed to try and get the names of its assets out of him. If he remembered correctly, they had asked him about names of his assets a lot, but since there had only been the one he had gone to Moscow to meet, he had not much to give them, even if he had felt inclined to give up that one name. He had not done so, because it felt like a defeat for him and a victory for the FSB. He was none too anxious to hand it to them on the sodding silver platter. Only after his release had he learned that his asset had been dead for eight years already; killed in a hit and run that had the FSB's fingerprints all over it.

He caught himself sliding into what Ros would disdainfully call sentimentality and gave himself a mental kick in the behind to stop himself from going there. Wallowing in memories and self-pity would not get him anywhere and it certainly would not bring him closer to working out who the traitor was. There was not much of a chance of that anyway, not with the limited information he had access to.

It had not stopped Ros and him from trying to piece together what they knew anyway over the takeaway, but it was hopeless. He felt like a toddler trying to complete a puzzle of a thousand pieces when he did not even have the example available to tell him what the picture was supposed to look like. And it frustrated his new friend as well; that he had been able to make out from her furious sotto voce stream of curses. But Ros was not the kind of person to let this one go, not when she believed one of her colleagues was in trouble. The Section Chief, he pondered, was taking the definition of loyalty to whole new levels. Harry was almost a father figure to the Section Chief, even if Ros would forcefully deny it when called on it. _Families only mess with your head_, would her response be.

And friends only annoyed you. That was something they had also agreed on, but yet they seemed to be doing well as friends. Maybe it was because they were also colleagues and they were okay.

But not all of them. That part they'd had to delete when Harry revealed that they were dealing with a yet unknown mole in MI-5 itself, someone who had gotten all too close to the Russians. Having been subjected to the FSB's fabled hospitality himself for quite some time, Lucas could not even begin to understand why anyone in his senses would do that.

He was pondering this as his phone started to chirrup and it was almost an automatic reaction to reach out and take the device in hand. Spooks instinct, probably. Every phone call could mean some important information coming in and years of experience in the security service meant that he had long since learned that nightly phone calls never were to convey good news.

He pressed the button and was about to mutter his name into the phone, but someone beat him to it. 'Lucas,' someone said.

It took Lucas less than half a second to realise that it was his boss who was talking to him. 'Harry.' He had to work hard not to let it come out as a question. The Section Head sounded weary and on edge, which was never a good combination, but his voice was steady. 'What's the matter?' He was already next to his bed, fishing for clothes that he could wear. This was not the first time he was called to Thames House in the middle of the night and it was bound not to be the last time either. And since a call from Harry at such a time could really only mean one thing, he decided to pre-empt the spoken red-flash and just get straight to the point.

Which was why he was so surprised when those were not Harry's next words. 'Look in your bedside drawer.' The tension was better audible now.

Lucas frowned before he could even begin to stop himself from doing so. But he knew better than to ask questions. Harry was likely enough to explain it eventually and so he did as he was told, collecting a large envelop from the place Harry had mentioned, casually wondering when exactly Harry had been in his flat and why he had left this in his house.

'I'm being set up,' his boss said as Lucas examined the contents of the envelop. 'We've got a mole in Section D. I need you to meet a contact in Moscow, Maria Korachevsky.' He spoke as if this was just an ordinary briefing. It would have been, were it not for the fact that Harry was obviously on edge and the fact that he had just ordered Lucas to revisit the land of his nightmares.

Because that was what was asked of him here. At the very mention of Moscow he had frozen in mid-motion and an icy chill had spread down his spine. He had to stop himself from vomiting on the very spot. Moscow was the place where he had been taken by the FSB before and if they truly had a traitor in Section D itself, who was to say he would not be subjecting himself to a repeat performance?

Because this was a shock. Lucas had believed that it was someone in MI-5 who had betrayed Sugarhorse and him, someone whose face he might know, but didn't know personally. For some reason it would be so much easier if it was someone he didn't know, because it would hurt less if it was just some unknown face who had treated him, someone they didn't know at all, like a means to their end. Section D he knew, very well in some cases. And the very thought that someone he had considered a good colleague had not only been able to betray the biggest security operation, but who also had no scruples about sentencing one of their own to the minimalist charms of Russian prison, it made bile rise in his throat.

It couldn't be Harry, of that he was certain. After all, why would he set himself up? That did not make any sense at all. Lucas briefly considered involvement of Richard Dolby, but dismissed that thought almost right away. Dolby was not technically in Section D and although it would be just too easy to pin blame on him because of his own dislike of the man, he had nothing to gain from betraying an operation he had invested in so much in the first place. Jo and Ben did not even count as candidates in his opinion. Both were too young, too new in the service to be the guilty ones. That left only a handful of others, because the desk spooks did not really count in his opinion. None of them would ever have had access to such sensitive information.

And that really only left Malcolm, Connie and Ros. Malcolm had been in the service seemingly forever. He had been there when Lucas joined and had become one of the first friends he'd made there. No, the very thought of Malcolm – civilised, gentlemanly Malcolm – being in league with the Russians was nothing short of ridiculous. The only interest Malcolm had in Russia was the technology they had developed, because their ancient bugs made for such a nice addition to his collection.

The idea of Connie being a Russian mole was equally absurd. The intelligence analyst was positively paranoid when the FSB – which she stubbornly kept calling the KGB – came into the picture. No matter what happened, the elderly woman always was convinced that the FSB was to blame for the crisis. For someone with such hatred of all things Russian to be the traitor, that seemed impossible too.

And that only left Ros, someone Lucas did not even want to consider at all. She had been in Six when he had joined Five. Her transfer to Section D had happened only a few years ago, but Ros excelled in ferretting things out she was not supposed to know _and_ she had recently spent some months in Moscow. He _had_ to consider it.

_No, you don't_. He stopped himself before he could go any further with this. Ros was loyal to a fault. Work was all she had. She was too much like him. She would never sell out one of her team, no matter what else she may have done. And Harry had trusted her enough to brief her about Sugarhorse. If he trusted her, then Lucas should too. Friends may be annoying and a downright nuisance, but they were okay as well.

Still, one of those three must be the one who was acting differently than they really were. Lucas pushed the thought to the back of his head. It was not something he wanted to consider now.

Harry interpreted his silence the wrong way. 'I'm sorry, Lucas.' There was paternal concern in his voice again, and only a fool would miss out on it. Yes, Harry hated the very need for asking this. 'By the time you get there, she will have all the information we need to pinpoint the mole.'

This forced his thoughts back to the unwelcome realisation that he was nothing short of forced to return to his very own hell. But he had made a promise. _Anything you need, Harry_. And if he did this, he would get to the person who had condemned him to that hell. As much as he didn't want to know, he _needed_ to. And that was the personal element, but in essence this was also a matter of national security and it was in his job description that he guarded that.

'I'm on my way,' he said, picking up a ring with a blue stone from the things that had been in the envelop. There was no real choice, this needed to be done. And that ring was the token he might need to give to this Maria Korachevsky, a woman whose name he had never even heard before. Would she be a Sugarhorse asset?

He could almost hear Harry's nod down the phone line, even if it wasn't spoken. 'One more thing. When you see Maria, tell her I'm sorry it took this for me to get in touch.' There was obvious regret audible, something that Harry Pearce wasn't known to do very often. 'She'll understand.' The line was disconnected before Lucas could reply.

He allowed himself half a minute to catch his breath before he forced himself to get up and get dressed. From the moment Harry had told him he had to go to Moscow he was on an operation and he could not afford the sentimentality and the fear to cloud his mind and his judgement. Personal matters aside, Harry must be in deep trouble and if he was truly being set up, then this was more urgent than he had realised at first. He could not afford to dawdle and let Harry take the blame for something he did not do. Harry had not been the one to sell him out and he had moved heaven and earth – even going as far as to command a legendary king – to get him back when Morgana had taken him. He owed him a favour and quite possibly more than one too.

The thought of Arthur reminded him that he was coming to visit in a few hours' time. His disappearance would be discovered within approximately six hours, but by then he hoped to be out of the country. Arthur would report it to Ros, he imagined. Those two were not exactly friends, but they did not dislike one another either. They tolerated one another and were allies when a situation asked for it.

Ros still was a candidate for treason, he knew, but his mind refused to believe it. Ros had stood by him when even Harry had doubted him. If Malcolm or Connie turned out to be the mole, he would still think it highly unlikely and downright bloody ridiculous, but he would be able to accept it, God help him. But accepting that Ros had betrayed her team, no, that never. Yes, she had been guilty of betrayal before, but she had never meant for any of her team to get hurt, because that was the one thing the Section Chief could never stand for. It was just not the same.

Praying that he was not making the biggest mistake of his life, he took a leap of faith and scribbled down a few words. Then he grabbed the few things he would need for the operation, left the flat and firmly closed the door behind him.

**Merlin**

It was pouring when their small group set out from Camelot and by the time they reached the portal Merlin was quite convinced that he might never even get dry again. It didn't help his mood along that Arthur for some reason that was quite beyond his comprehension had decided to take Mordred along for the visit. The king had muttered some unintelligible explanation of Mordred never having been to London yet. Apparently he thought it would be a good experience for the young man.

Quite frankly it was rather alarming how much time Mordred spent in Arthur's company and how much the king seemed to enjoy the Druid boy's presence. He kept asking him questions about magic and the people who used it, questions, Merlin felt, that should have been asked of him instead of Mordred. He had known the king for a very long time now, so why did he turn to someone who he hardly knew at all? Yes, Mordred had saved Arthur's life, but so had Merlin on countless occasions. _But you have also lied to him_, a small voice in the back of his head whispered. _He doesn't know if you can be trusted._

And that hurt, more than he was ready to admit to even himself. Yes, they were rebuilding their friendship, but they still were nowhere near where they had been before the balloon went up, as Ros had phrased it. They bantered as they had done before, but Merlin was fairly certain that it was only a way to mask the mess that the friendship really was, if they could even speak of a friendship at all. They were trying, but the trust had been absolutely destroyed. There simply were no easy ways out of this. All in all it was only logical that Arthur sought out someone he felt he could trust unconditionally, even when Merlin feared he was embracing his very own doom.

But he could not truly say anything against the Druid. It was nothing more than suspicions and circumstantial evidence. There was the prophecy to reckon with as well, but it was old news that Arthur did not believe in those. It was almost exactly like it had been when Merlin had first started to suspect Agravaine and Morgana. Arthur was being deliberately blind and since he had only very little to present as evidence, it was not enough to persuade Arthur to see his point. His biggest fear now was that Arthur would only realise the danger he was in when it was already far too late.

And that was why he now hoped that the spooks could help out. Merlin was fully aware that he was not exactly in a position to ask any favours of them – if anything, he owed them a fair few – but he could always ask and that was what he was intending to do. And the spooks had the legends. Those were mostly rubbish, he had learned from his visits to Jo, but some of them held an element of truth, even if they got most of it all wrong and the details were pure fantasy.

Still, it might be useful, if only he could find a way to use it. Harry and Ros would be less than willing to help him out, though, so Merlin's money was on Lucas. Arthur and Lucas were friends of sorts and the warlock for one was sure that the spy still kept an eye out for the king. He had mumbled something along the lines of how he was not about to let Arthur die now that he had taken such troubles to keep him alive.

'You are silent, Merlin,' Arthur observed. 'Nervous about meeting Jo again?' It was an attempt at humour, but after the row they'd had the day before, it felt forced and insincere.

Nevertheless, he replied with a snort. 'Are you nervous about meeting Ros?' he countered.

Arthur guffawed. 'Ros is not the one to come for us.'

No, that would be Jo. Merlin had worked out some kind of communication with her. Mobile phones stopped working in Camelot, even after Malcolm's special treatment, so now he simply had charmed two notebooks into revealing the message that was written in only one of them. So far it worked and this was how he had arranged their transport for the day. If all went well and some terrorist organisation did not get it into their thick skulls to bomb London today, she would be in the village to collect them.

'Only imagine your relief,' Merlin said. Normally he would enjoy the feeling of having the last word, but today the argument and the awkwardness that it had caused were still too fresh to let him truly enjoy it. Sometimes it seemed like they would always mess things up just when they seemed to be on the right path. Yesterday was a fine example of that.

The downpour had stopped suddenly, indicating that they had crossed the portal and that it was apparently not raining in Britain today. There was a hesitant sun shining through the leaves.

Merlin muttered a quick spell that dried all their clothes, and found that he had only just beaten Mordred to doing the exact same thing. The young Druid was buttering up to Arthur far more than could be healthy, never passing up an opportunity to get into Arthur's good books at Merlin's expense. It was all very subtle, meaning that he could never truly accuse the lad of bullying, but he had been in the job of protecting Arthur long enough to know how to read between lines. And he had not forgotten what Mordred had said years ago: _I shall never forgive this, Emrys, and I shall never forget. _Well, Merlin had not forgotten either and that meant that his guard would be well and truly up until this matter was dealt with in a satisfactory manner.

Lucas had once accused him of not being able to do what it took and Merlin was determined for it not to come as close as it had then. _Then accept the fact that someday somewhere someone will kill your king_, Lucas had said. _There won't always be someone to take his place. Because that is what happens when you choose to stay on that precious moral high ground of yours. _Yes, Merlin still had principles and that was why he would try to solve it with the spooks' help first, but if that turned out to be in vain, he might need to take matters into his own hands, no matter how much he hated the need for it. He had a destiny to protect Arthur and he had failed in that before. At least no one would be able to accuse him of not getting his priorities straight this time.

Mordred knew he had been beaten this round, but it was hardly a victory worth mentioning. The war was still on and this had only been a minor skirmish. The look he sent Merlin made it only too obvious.

The walk to the village was a silent one. As always Merlin pointedly avoided looking at the place where the barn Hogan had owned had stood. It was too much of a reminder of his own failure and it was a reminder he could do without. Hogan was still safely behind lock and key and even though there was still a low-level war between MI-5 and the CIA, the latter were unlikely to ever get their former officer back. Harry was adamant about it. _All's well that ends well_, the head of the section had said after the operation. The thing was that Merlin was not quite certain if it had even ended yet.

Jo waited on the outskirts of the village with a car. She smiled as she recognised him and greeted him with her usual hug, that made Merlin colour a bright red in embarrassment as Arthur whistled his commentary. He clearly was unable to recognise plain friendship even when it bit him by the nose and had to suspect something more when there was no ground for it whatsoever.

'Good to see you,' she said. 'How are you?'

Fine, his usual answer, would have been a lie and so he settled for the more truthful 'Could have been worse.' If he said that with a dazzling smile, she might not even suspect him of lying to her. Disguise the truth in plain sight, Lucas had told him in a rare mood of mildness towards Merlin's person. It worked too. Jo clearly thought he was joking.

She greeted Arthur with a smile and a handshake and then turned to Mordred. 'I don't think we've met before?'

Mordred unleashed his most charming smile on her, took her hand and placed a kiss on it. 'My name is Mordred, Lady Jo. It is a pleasure to meet you.'

To Merlin's annoyance she blushed and smiled in reaction. The warlock had at least hoped the spies would have more common sense, but Jo reacted the same to Mordred as all the people in Camelot; she seemed charmed and somewhat endeared to the young man. He could only hope Ros, Lucas and Harry would respond quite a bit more reasonably than Jo had just done.

'The pleasure is mine,' the junior officer said. She smiled, but all of a sudden the smile became a little fixed as the name started to truly register in her mind. 'Wait, did you say that your name was Mordred?' To Merlin's satisfaction he noticed that the expression of charmed amusement had made way for confusion mixed up with some alarm.

The smile on Mordred's face was still firmly in place, so he had either not noticed Jo's changed attitude, which didn't seem likely, or he did a good job of disguising his own reaction. That seemed a whole lot more likely to Merlin.

'I did, my lady.' The Druid was still impeccably polite. 'Have you heard of me?'

_She has, just not in the way you think_. Merlin kept his silence. It would be best to tread on eggshells around Arthur where the subject of Mordred was concerned for a while. But he was glad that Jo apparently had more common sense than he had just given her credit for.

He studied Mordred's face as inconspicuously as he could. He was the very image of the charming young man who was aspiring to be a knight, but something was off. It wasn't something he could lay his finger on straight away, but as he thought about it for a little longer, he realised that it was Mordred's attitude towards the twenty-first century that was odd. They were standing next to Jo's car, a thing that was not commonplace in Camelot, even when Ros unwillingly had sought to remedy that by racing the van through the streets after they had saved Lucas from Morgana's clutches. Arthur had reacted with fear when he had first laid eyes on the means of transport they had around here. Now, of course the king would have given Mordred something akin to a lecture about what to expect, but still the natural reaction would be to be curious about something that did not exist in the time period they usually lived in, if he wasn't scared of it, that was. Mordred had not given the vehicle as much as a second glance. To be honest, Merlin was not even sure he had given it a first to begin with.

And this puzzled him. The way Mordred acted would suggest that he was already familiar with cars and had accepted them as a normal thing to be seeing. Merlin did not know what it meant yet, but there was something that was not right. _Is it ever right when Mordred is involved?_

Meanwhile Jo was still trying and failing to come up with an explanation for her own words. She had coloured a bright crimson and was searching for the right words to say, but fortunately her mobile started to blurt out the song that was her ringtone and that saved her from the need to answer Mordred's question.

'Jo Portman,' she said. There was a short silence as she listened to what the person on the other end of the line was saying and then she paled. 'Ros, are you serious?' Another silence. 'Sorry, I didn't mean it like that. It's just… Yes, I'm on my…' She removed the phone from her ear. 'Way,' she finished wryly. Apparently Ros Myers had been her charming self again and had hung up before Jo could even finish her sentence.

'What's the matter?' Merlin asked. He had spent some time on the Grid after the conclusion of the operation and that had taught him that sudden phone calls almost never meant something good and if Ros did not give him the time to finish a sentence, then that meant things were urgent. Urgent was not good with MI-5.

'Red-flash,' the young spy said. She sounded and looked altogether stressed now. 'I don't have the time to drop you off at Lucas's, so you'll have to come with me to Thames House.'

Personally Merlin did not have any objections to that; he liked the Grid with all its wondrous machines. It was the urgency of it all that made him ill at ease. The last thing he wanted was to be caught up in another serious crisis when he had so many of his own problems to deal with. But there was not much choice now and so he slid into the passenger seat and belted up as Jo hit the gas, driving them back to London at top speed.

* * *

**So, I'm back from holiday and I brought a whole lot of ideas for this story with me, and that is good news for you, because it means that this one will be updated every Saturday from now on. **

**So, until next Saturday then. In the meantime reviews would be lovely. **


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

**Ros**

Ros had increasingly less patience for the lunatics who thought they could drive through the red traffic light, causing accidents and traffic jams of legendary proportions. She drummed on the steering wheel impatiently, waiting for the cars in front of her to speed up again so that she could get to work, preferably before she had wasted the entire morning here. She was already running late. Well, technically she was not too late, but Lucas and she had agreed to come into work early to see if they could find out something more about the Sugarhorse operation. Harry had not felt up to sharing, but Ros was not about to go and let her boss face all the trouble on his own, not when he had done so much for her. Good grief, she didn't know of much people who would employ her after involvement in a failed coup, never mind her betrayal with Yalta. Harry had given her a second chance and that had gained him her loyalty. And that meant that she would not leave him to deal with this Sugarhorse mess all on his own.

Ros more or less expected to see a text from Lucas on her phone, to ask where she was and if she was all right, because she was not yet on the Grid, but her mobile was silent and no texts or calls came in. The traffic jam finally ended and Ros hit the gas to make up for lost time. She parked in the garage and with some interest, but also mild alarm, noticed that neither Harry's nor Lucas's cars were there. They too could be caught up in traffic, but Ros rather doubted it. Harry practically lived in Thames House these days and Lucas was an insomniac, who usually was up before the larks and was on the Grid before the sun even started to rise. Both their absence could just be a coincidence, but Ros Myers had been in the Service for far too long to believe in that. She needn't panic necessarily – and goodness knew she usually didn't do panic – but a feeling in her gut told her something was wrong.

She was proven right when she emerged on the Grid and found Internal Security swarming all over the place, installing a device that looked remarkably like a mobile listening device to the wall. Malcolm, Connie and Ben were either perched on the edges of desks, or – in Malcolm's case – were standing with arms folded across their chests radiating disapproval at what was going on. In the background the newsreader was chattering on about the American's latest foolish notion to place a missile defence shield in Eastern Poland and the Russians' predictably furious reaction to that, after which he continued to report the death of the Russian Foreign Minister, someone called Alexander Borkhovin, who had died of a heart attack last night.

Ros recognised trouble when she happened upon it and those two incidents were as likely to be separate incidents as she was to ever be a people's person. The fact that the Prime Minister had gotten himself involved in this mess by backing up the White House in the missile defence shield issue now meant that Britain was as much involved in this as the United States were. And this all just so happened to coincide with Harry and Lucas's disappearing act and Internal Security taking over the Grid. That was unlikely to be coincidence either. It still did not truly explain what Internal Security had to do with it all.

_When I expose the mole, all hell will break loose, both here and in Russia_. Harry's words as he briefed Lucas and her about Sugarhorse came back to her now. Hell had broken loose in Russia already and, by the looks of things, something had gone pear-shaped here as well. _Good grief, Harry, what have you done?_ Sugarhorse must be involved in this all somehow, but Ros had too little information to go on to really be able to work out what to do.

_Sort out your priorities, Myers_, she snapped at herself. _Stop wool-gathering and get a move on. You've got a crisis to contain._

Her mental reprimand helped to snap her out of her state of shock, even if she would rather die than admit to being shocked by anything. So she marched over to whatever was present of her team and barked the first question she could think off at the intelligence analyst. 'Where's Jo?' If this was truly about Sugarhorse, as she was by now strongly suspecting, than they might be out to do something to that end, but Jo wasn't in on the whole thing. There was no logical explanation for her disappearing act.

Connie bristled at the tone of voice. 'I don't know, Ros,' she said indignantly. 'Do you know where Lucas and Harry are?' Some concern coloured her voice now – she was just as thrown off balance by what now looked like the mysterious disappearance of almost half the team as Ros herself was – and that stopped the Section Chief from exploding altogether.

'Try their phones,' she ordered. 'I'll call Jo.' She didn't wait for Connie's nod, but dug up her phone and all but stabbed her younger colleague's number into it.

The phone rang twice before it was answered. 'Jo Portman.' The owner of that name sounded far too relaxed for this situation, which drove Ros's blood even closer to boiling point than it already was. God help her if the junior officer had just overslept.

'Red-flash,' she barked into the mobile phone. 'We seem to be visited by the in-laws just as we have a sodding crisis to contain.' She was well aware that everything she said would be recorded and analysed, which was why she would need to keep this brief. She would save the shouting for later.

There was a short disbelieving silence on the other end. 'Ros, are you serious?' The incredulity in her voice could probably be picked up by a deaf man.

'Do I sound like I am bloody well joking?' Ros snapped. If only she were.

'Sorry, I didn't mean it like that,' Jo hastily apologised. 'It's just…'

But Ros didn't have the time to listen to apologies right now, or to Jo's naïve chattering about how she didn't understand what Internal Security was doing on the Grid. 'I need you here now,' she pointed out. 'We'll discuss this later.' The same was true for the discussion about how to read the time from a clock, so that she would be on time in future.

'Yes, I'm on my…'

Ros had hung up on her before she could finish that sentence, just in time to hear the pods whoosh. She swivelled around, only to see Richard Dolby emerging from them with a face like thunder. He hardly spared her a glance as he turned right for Harry's office. _The link_, she thought. _He's the link_. Richard Dolby would have the authority to bring Internal Security down on them and he had been one of the three spies who had created Sugarhorse. _When I expose the mole, all hell will break loose, both here and in Russia_. That prediction had certainly come true.

And she was not going to be left in the dark. So she turned and marched after Dolby. 'Would you like to explain to me why your technicians are fixing a mobile listening device to our wall while we're trying to deal with a major diplomatic crisis?' she demanded. She tried, she really tried, to keep her anger out of her voice, but it was a battle she was doomed to lose before she had even begun to fight it. Richard Dolby was a little shit, whose common sense seemed to have abandoned him around the same time as he ceased to be a field officer and went behind a desk. The fact that he never passed up an opportunity to try and discredit her – in which he never succeeded; trying to win a battle of words against Ros Myers was not something very many people could pull off – did not make her like him any better.

He now stopped and turned to her. 'The short answer is that I suspect your boss of the most serious betrayal in the history of this organisation.' He snapped the words at her in anger, as if she somehow was to blame for all of this, but she thought she could detect an amount of smugness underneath it that made her skin crawl. 'Harry is being investigated under suspicion of being an FSB mole.'

Harry, a mole? Her first impulse was to laugh in the man's face at the sheer absurdity of the very idea. Harry hated Russians with a passion. He had been thwarting their plans and schemes for most of his working life, so for him to suddenly turn his back on everything he had believed in for so long, that was just not done. Harry Pearce was not the kind of man to ever act in such a fashion. Ros knew him rather well by now and that was one of the few things she was absolutely certain of.

'That is impossible,' she managed to croak out as the shock started to replace the urge to laugh hysterically.

'That is entirely possible.' Dolby leaned over and all but spat the words in her face. Ros had to suppress the urge to step back to avoid any possible accompanying saliva from ending up in her hair and face. 'And in his absence, I am taking control of this section. I expect all officers to observe protocol. You work as normal and you report directly to me. And while we continue investigations, all your communications will be recorded and analysed by Internal Security.'

_Guilty by association, you mean_. Ros had to work hard not to let that accusations, as well as several scathing put-downs concerning Dolby's state of mind and parentage, cross her lips. The shock was well and truly settling in now and she was cold, even though the central heating worked as normal, probably one of the few things that was, she observed wryly. The rest seemed to have gone belly-up somewhere between last night and now.

'This team is utterly loyal to Harry Pearce,' Ros said. She hated the fact that she seemed to have lost the capability to speak in anything louder than a whisper around the same time Dolby had told her about Harry's supposed betrayal. She did not believe for one second that there was any truth to this accusation. Someone, the traitor Harry had mentioned a few days ago, must have set him up. It was the only bloody explanation that made any sense. Dolby himself might even be the mole, even if she could not for the life of her figure out why he would do such a thing. 'You cannot expect them to hear that information and carry on as if nothing has happened.' The shocked faces behind her told her all she needed to know. They were not even aware of how serious this truly was, but already they were confused and maybe even a little scared. Heaven knew even Ros was close to being afraid of what was happening and everyone who knew her could tell that the Section Chief didn't do scared.

'I do not believe that Alexander Borkhovin died of a heart attack.' Dolby, Ros observed, reminded her of a vicious dog planning on ripping her throat out. 'I think the Russians are up to something and until you find out what it is and how it relates to this crisis, I don't want to hear another word.'

That must be the first and quite possibly the last thing Ros Myers and Richard Dolby ever agreed on, but this was hardly the time to celebrate that glorious fact. Quite the contrary actually. It was possibly for the best that Dolby left her where she stood while he marched into Harry's office – blasphemy in and out of itself – and slid the door forcefully shut, as to emphasise that he was shutting her out. Just for this once Ros didn't mind not being admitted into the office; there was nothing she would hate more than to share the space with that bloody man.

She took a deep breath and turned back to her colleagues. The whole world had turned upside down and had ceased to make sense today, but with Harry being interrogated by only God knows who and in heaven only knew what way – and that was a subject she could not afford to let herself think about for fear she might start to scream if she did – she was in charge and there was panic enough as it was. If she lost her composure, then all chances of ever getting to the end of this crisis and proving that Harry was not the traitor he was made out to be were practically non-existent. She felt as if the weight of the world had been loaded onto her shoulders.

'Harry's been arrested,' she announced. _And even if it is the last thing I do, I will get him out._ She had promised that she would give anything he might need when he had briefed her about Sugarhorse and she meant it. The current crisis might have to take precedence, but she would put an end to this nonsense first chance she got.

'Do they have any evidence against him?' Ben sounded doubtful about that himself, as if he did not really believe it himself, with good reason of course.

'I very much doubt it,' Ros said dismissively. Proof there might be, because even Dolby would not act without some evidence, but she did not think that it was genuine. 'We'll be kept under surveillance. Our orders are to work as normal, but to report to Richard Dolby.'

'That's ridiculous.' Connie voiced the sentiment Ros herself felt.

But she could not and would not allow that sentiment to rule her actions and so she slapped it down. 'Whatever we may feel, we need to work out what the Russians' next move is before they know it themselves and we start by finding out if that man's death,' she pointed at Borkhovin's face, that was splashed all over the television screen still, 'has anything to do with this.' She went on to give orders. It helped to do something that was so familiar. Right now focusing on this operation stopped her from going to pieces. Harry was arrested for treason and Lucas was heaven only knew where and she felt forlorn. Everything now came down to her and as much as she usually relished the chance of being in sole charge, she now found that she did not enjoy it as much as she thought she would.

Connie seemed to have read her thoughts. 'And where's Lucas?' she asked. 'Is he in trouble too?' Ros took it that meant that a call to his mobile had been just as useless as her attempt to make Richard Dolby see sense.

'I have no idea,' she confessed. 'But if anyone hears from Lucas, they let me know immediately.' God give that he at least was somewhere safe.

**Arthur**

Arthur would never really get used to being driven around in twenty-first century cars, that moved at a speed that always left Arthur with the feeling his stomach was left behind some miles back. Normally Jo drove reasonably well – meaning: slow – but today she seemed to have copied her Section Chief's driving habits: far too fast and reckless. Whatever had been discussed on the phone, it was serious. Mordred was pale and gave every impression of going to throw up between now and five minutes.

Merlin was the only one who seemed perfectly at ease. He had been jumpy and uneasy for most of the past few weeks, but that unease seemed to have vanished faster than one could say magic the moment he stepped foot in Britain. The king of Camelot could not say what had brought that change about, but it was clear that he felt at home here. Even the impending crisis of a yet unspecified nature did not penetrate the aura of confidence that hung about him now. He was chatting with Jo and ignored Arthur and Mordred on the back seat of the car. Well, at least it was no news that he was ignoring the Druid. Merlin had never liked the lad, because of some prophecy apparently. That matter was not yet resolved.

It was actually one of the reasons he had taken Mordred with him to Camelot. It was high time that Merlin got used to his presence and "exposure" to the future knight might just do the trick. Maybe, he pondered as Jo slowed down to drive the vehicle into the garage under Thames House, Merlin just could not handle the fact that he no longer was the only one with magic to have Arthur's confidence. In that case, he'd better get used to it.

'What has happened?' he questioned as they left the garage and made their way up the stairs. Mordred was looking at his surroundings as if the very walls would jump out to attack him – an attitude Arthur recognised all too well, because he had been exactly like that when he had first come here – but at the moment the crisis would have to take precedence.

Jo shook his head. 'I don't know. I only know that I was red-flashed and that Internal Security has moved in for some reason. I don't know anything else.' The young woman sounded a little anxious and distressed.

Arthur wondered what he knew about Internal Security, but it was very little. All he knew, and that was deducted from Jo's behaviour, was that their presence was apparently bad news. What the hell is going on? His mind's voice sounded a lot like Ros at the moment. This visit sounded less like a good idea by the second.

They emerged from the pods, only to be greeted with chaos. There were a lot of unfamiliar and very unsympathetic looking faces on the Grid, there was some shouting and to top it all off nicely there was an all too familiar man in Harry's office. He was around the same age as the Section head and he had the same dress code as well, but that were the similarities ended. This man looked like he had chewed on something very sour as he was bended over a stack of reports on the desk that Arthur always thought of as Harry's. At first he failed to come up with a name for him, but then he recalled the spy boss he had gotten into an argument with over his treatment of Ros. Richard Dolby had hardly changed in those few months, apart from the fact that he now looked even less friendly than he usually was. And the sight of that man in that office made his skin crawl.

The next thing he noticed was that Lucas was not anywhere in sight either. The officers that were on the Grid were caught up in frantic activity and there was a level of tension that Arthur associated with the time Lucas had been suspected of being a traitor. Connie was glaring at the computer screen in front of her, Malcolm was caught up in a very uncharacteristic heated argument with one of the unfamiliar men that had invaded the Grid and seemed to be preventing him from getting to his own work station. Ben, he now realised, was nowhere to be seen either.

It was almost a relief to find that Ros at least was still where she was supposed to be. The Section Chief was leaning over her desk, looking at the files in front of her as if they had gravely offended her. If they had been living beings, they would have dropped dead from the scowl on her face. It was nothing new to see the Section Chief look at something or someone in that way, but today it only seemed to confirm what the other officers already seemed to suggest was happening.

Jo made a beeline for Ros's desk and there was little choice for him but to follow suit. If he wanted to know what the matter was – and Arthur realised that he indeed wanted to know, even as he regretted having come here today of all days already – then Ros would be the person to ask. The Section Chief was the kind of person who always knew exactly what was going on around her and there was no reason to assume today was any different.

Part of him wished he was home, but another part of him – that part of him that got him into trouble time and again – wanted to help out. It was obvious to anyone with a brain that something somewhere had gone horribly wrong and he owed these people a lot after they had helped him so much.

'What's going on?' he demanded, following Ros's good example of wasting no time on social niceties. She was rubbing off badly on him.

So far she had not noticed their arrival, so when she looked up from whatever it was that she had been doing, there was surprise on her face. But she would not be the Section Chief of Section D if she hadn't known how to handle that and then she turned on Jo. 'What are _they_ doing here?' The tone of voice suggested that she was close to biting the junior officer's head off.

Had anyone else spoken about him in such tones, Arthur would have exploded. But this was Ros and she didn't do polite conversation unless it couldn't be helped. And it was no state secret that she only tolerated their presence as long as they were not in her way. Today, apparently, they very much were.

'We had agreed to visit with Jo and Lucas,' he replied, throwing in his last reserves of patience, which were fading rapidly at not having his questions answered. He got the annoying feeling that his questions were evaded on purpose.

Something flickered in Ros's eyes, but it was gone before it could be identified. 'Have you seen Lucas?'

The alarm in her voice, no matter how well disguised, set Arthur's teeth on edge. Heaven gave that he had not just arrived in time for a repeat performance of Lucas's supposed betrayal. 'We were red-flashed near the portal,' he reported. 'So we assumed we would meet him here. Ros, what is wrong? Where is Lucas?' He glanced at the office again, where Dolby was still enthroned behind a desk that in Arthur's mind never would be his. 'And where's Harry?'

Ros only answered the last one. 'Harry's been arrested under suspicion of being an FSB mole.' She growled the words, stabbing a pen at the papers in front of her as she did so.

It took Arthur a few moments to recall what the FSB was and then his jaw dropped in disbelief. Harry, a spy for the Russians? Even he, not remotely up to date with the latest developments and not too well informed about politics and allegiances in the twenty-first century, would know that Harry was even less likely to betray his country than Arthur was to ever dress up in skirts and declare himself a woman. The very notion was just too ridiculous to consider. 'Harry?' he asked, stupidly wondering if perhaps they were talking about another Harry. 'Harry Pearce?'

Ros cast him a withering glance. 'No, Harry Potter,' she said sarcastically.

Arthur rewarded her for her troubles with a blank look. He didn't think he'd ever heard of anyone by that name and besides, Ros did not sound as if she had really meant what she said. It was just one of her sarcastic put-downs. Nevertheless, the question had already escaped his mouth before he could stop himself. 'Who?'

'Never mind,' the Section Chief said irritably. 'You haven't seen Lucas at all? Heard of him?' She almost sounded cajoling now, but Arthur dismissed that fanciful thought at once. Ros Myers did not plead, ever. She would not suddenly start to do so now, not even now that Harry had been arrested.

Arthur complied with the unspoken request to pull the mobile he had been given for when he spent time in London, out of his pocket. It had taken him some time to learn how to use it and he would never excel at using it, but he did know how to check for texts and missed calls. There were none of those.

'Nothing,' he reported. 'Where is he?'

'What is happening?' Jo asked at the same time.

Naturally it was Jo's question that was answered. What followed was an account of the death of an important Russian official, just as the Russians were running amok over America's plan to place a missile defence shield – Arthur made a mental note to ask Connie, his personal translator for words he did not yet know, what exactly that was – close to their borders. And while Harry was still under investigation, Richard Dolby had apparently taken control of Section D and all officers were now ordered to report to him, another thing that made the king want to hit that man. Arthur had to agree with her that this was unlikely to be a coincidence and he even agreed with her about the need to find out what the hell the Russians were up to before this crisis could truly escalate, but it had not escaped his notice that Ros had so far failed to answer his question of where Lucas was.

Not that he did not have suspicions of his own. The main reason he had even heard of the FSB's existence, was that Lucas had been their "guest" for eight years. And now they came into the picture in relation to Harry being a "traitor" and the Russians getting angry at the United States and Britain. He sincerely hoped Lucas's disappearance did not mean he was spirited away into his own personal hell again, but he also knew that there was a distinct possibility of exactly that happening.

'Where is Lucas?' he repeated for good measure, hoping to get a more satisfactory answer this time.

Ros shook her head wearily. 'I don't know,' she admitted. 'I haven't heard from him since yesterday.' She looked at Jo, Merlin and finally at Mordred. 'Who's that?'

'His name is Mordred,' Arthur replied. 'He'll soon be knighted, so I thought I'd take him with me to get used to London.'

The expression of almost disgust on Ros's face told the king of Camelot what she thought of that decision, but she kept her commentary to herself and turned to Jo and the servant. 'Jo, I want Borkhovin's phone and email records. I want to know everything he said, wrote and thought in the last month and I want it on my desk as soon as possible. Merlin can help you, since he doesn't have anything else to do.' It was good to know that some things never changed and Ros's attitude towards Merlin was one of those things. Her gaze then fell on Mordred, who was as ill at ease as Arthur had ever seen him. 'You just stay out of their way and do something useful if you can.' For some reason she seemed just as hostile towards Mordred as Merlin, although her reasons probably had more to do with him being in her way than the prophecy the warlock could not shut up about. 'And keep them as far away from Dolby as you can. Last thing we need is him poking his nose in that as well.'

Mordred took offence all the same. He shot Ros as withering a glance as she had sent him, but went without as much as a murmur of protest.

Arthur waited until they were gone and then turned back to Ros. She had sent them away so she could talk to him, he suspected that much, and it was a clear sign that whatever alliance they had formed over Operation Camelot was still in existence. 'What is going on?' he asked. If he wasn't careful he would soon lose count of how many times he had asked that question already today. 'Really going on?'

Ros quickly brought him up to speed and left Arthur gawping at the complexity of it all.

'You mean that he was about to expose a traitor and now he is being set up?' It didn't take a great intellect to conclude that the traitor must have been two or more steps ahead and had taken rather drastic measures to prevent Harry from revealing what he knew. 'And Lucas?' Because that was still the big question.

Ros shook her head. 'I don't know where he is,' she repeated. 'He was briefed about Sugarhorse with me. The Russians interrogated him about it, he said, but I don't think he knows anything else. I saw him last night, but have not heard from him since. And he's not answering his bloody mobile either!' The frustration was too obvious to miss. There was worry there as well, which was understandable, since Arthur knew them to be friends.

'Just as Harry is taken prisoner about a matter Lucas knew about,' he concluded, feeling the dread settling comfortably in his stomach. 'Do you think Dolby's taken him as well?'

Ros shrugged helplessly. 'I don't bloody know.' The words came out as a snarl. 'And I can't leave the Grid to find out what happened. I need to contain this crisis first.' It was the well-known job-first-and-everything-else-later-attitude that Arthur found so hard to understand. He knew Ros would never willingly throw Harry and Lucas to the wolves, but she would leave them among enemies if national security was threatened, although she would only do very reluctantly so. Arthur had seen for himself just how far she was willing to go for her colleagues.

But he was not bound by the same rules as the Section Chief was. 'I'll go to his flat to see what I can find out.' A plan was forming in his mind now. He more or less knew the way, although it would take longer by foot than by car. And he did not know what else he could really do without any other clues to go on. Lucas's flat might hold some answers. The one thing he was sure of was that he could not leave his friend in danger, if that was what was the matter here.

Ros seemed to be on the verge of refusing, but then nodded. 'Discreetly,' she instructed. 'I don't want Dolby catching wind of it.'

Arthur simply nodded. 'I will be.'

* * *

**Next time: Arthur carries out an investigation of his own. Until then, please review?**


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

**Arthur**

He should have known that things would never be as easy as that. Dolby, who had so far been too preoccupied with whatever report he had been reading, had suddenly looked up and located three extra people on "his" work floor. The result of that was that he had come storming out from the office, looking like a lion about to attack and swallow him whole, demanding just what he thought they were doing here.

Arthur by now had developed something of an allergic reaction to the presence of the man. He was not Ros's biggest fan either – the woman was far too snappy and cold to be considered likeable – but Dolby was unreasonable. It didn't help the case that he was as haughty as Lord Harold and far too pleased with himself, even if it quite eluded Arthur what he was so pleased about; he never seemed to do anything even remotely useful.

'What is going on here?' he demanded.

'We are investigating the death of Alexander Borkhovin,' Arthur replied, staring the other man down. He was grateful for Ros's little lecture. Helping Section D had not been very high on his to-do list, but even if the Section Chief had not spelled it out for him, he was not stupid. They might be heading towards the worst crisis they had faced since Morgana and Hogan had taken to blowing up the station. And with Dolby playing the overbearing idiot, Harry arrested and Lucas missing, turning away would not be the right thing to do. Lucas had risked life and limb for him and now might be the time to repay the favour. 'I am following up a plausible lead, as per your instructions.'

Dolby at least gave the impression of being a little ill at ease – Arthur did not think he had quite forgotten who Arthur was, nor had he forgotten the tongue-lashing he had been on the receiving end of the last time they'd met – but being Section Head had made him a little more immune to it. 'Where did you come from? You are not part of this section.'

He swung his ID in front of Richard Dolby's face, so close the man had to look cross-eyed to see it properly. For a moment he seemed to be choking, but then he nodded stiffly. 'You'll hand in your report the moment you return,' he ordered, trying and failing to pull rank on him.

_Will I now? _Any reports he had would be taken to Ros, he knew. Things may be different in the twenty-first century, but he had grown up in a land where loyalty was something that was tied to individual persons, like a king or close friends, instead of to a system. Ros had earned Arthur's, Dolby had not.

'Merlin, are you coming?' he called. He had absolutely no intention of walking across London when he had a servant who had – finally – mastered the art of disappearing and appearing in impressive looking whirlwinds in no time at all. And he might have a few tricks up his sleeve that could come in handy in case Lucas's flat was not as safe as Arthur hoped it to be.

Mordred was making to follow, but was called back almost right away by Jo to sort out some paperwork. She tried to make it sound like the natural thing to do, but contrary to popular belief, Arthur was not completely deprived of intelligence or observational skills. There was something forced about her tone of voice. There had been ever since the moment the lad introduced himself to her and he thought there had been a flicker of wariness on Ros's face as well when he had mentioned Mordred's name. Something told him that his plan to have the young Druid accepted was not going quite according to plan and for the life of him he could not understand why.

But that was something that had to wait now. It would keep until this crisis was dealt with, Harry was back in his office, Lucas was on the Grid and Dolby would have crawled back into whatever dark place he had come from. The lad was looking at him pleadingly, visibly ill at ease and not at all willing to spend any more time here, especially if it had to be spent without a familiar face there to guide him.

'My lord, would it not be better if I came with you?' he asked. 'It might be dangerous.'

Arthur shook his head. He would know what to look for and to Mordred it would all be new and bewildering. And sorting papers was something he would know how to do; even a child could do that. 'Stay here, Mordred,' he ordered, but in as gentle a tone of voice as he could muster. 'If there are any dangers, then Merlin will protect me from them.'

Merlin's face brightened even as Mordred's fell. Arthur contained the rage he felt at their childish rivalry for his favour. He had no idea what had gotten into their heads, but he found himself wishing he could just bash their heads together to smash some sense into them, because at the moment he felt like the only one of the three of them who had his priorities sorted.

'No offence, my lord, but Merlin does not master the sword very well,' the future knight protested, not about to let the matter go.

'I master the sword well enough.' Arthur gave his voice a slightly dismissive edge, but could not find it in himself to snap at Mordred. He could not quite fathom why, but he felt responsible for him, not unlike a parent might, he imagined. Maybe it was because he had known Mordred as a young, helpless boy. 'And, as you know, Merlin has a better form of defence if the need should arise. Mordred,' he said as the lad nonetheless tried to object again, 'this is an order.' The sentence was borrowed from Harry, who used it when he wanted to end an argument.

The lad looked crestfallen, but nevertheless bowed and returned to the desk he had been assigned. He kept looking as if he could be attacked any moment, but he obeyed, as Arthur had already expected. Later he would explain why he needed Merlin rather than him for this job. Now was not the time.

Merlin was a little too happy about this turn of events and it showed in that dazzling smile that now spread over his face. Lately he seemed to be only too eager to see Mordred taken down and it set Arthur's very teeth on edge. 'Wipe that smile off your face, _Mer_lin,' he snapped at the warlock. 'This childish feud has to end. We are dealing with a serious matter and Lucas might be in danger.' He resisted the urge to add a snapped 'Get your bloody priorities sorted,' because he had already heard one time too many that he sounded too much like Ros.

The loud silence he received from the other was all the response he got, but at least the triumphant smile had gone. It was a compromise, but it was the best he could hope for under the given circumstances. When they were back in Camelot he would sit Merlin down for a long chat about jealousy and how to deal with that. And while he was at it, he might have a chat about paranoia and prophecies as well. This was getting too ridiculous for words. But that time was not now.

Arthur forced his mind back to the matter at hand, going over what he knew, which admittedly was not very much at all. Lucas could have been abducted by Dolby as well as Harry, and in that case there might be clues in his flat. The same would be true if the FSB had gotten to him. Or else he was in hiding, which was the possibility Arthur was hoping for. There did not seem any other options.

'What do you think we will find there?' Merlin asked, following Arthur's example of focusing on the operation instead of trivial matters as they walked down to an abandoned alley they could use to disappear without the passers-by and CCTV noticing any of their actions.

Arthur shrugged. 'Any clue,' he said, not even sure what he was looking for himself. Lucas's flat was so sparsely furnished that he hoped that any clues there might be, would be easily visible. He would not allow himself to hope too hard though. If spooks excelled at anything, it would be keeping secrets and obscuring the truth from any casual onlookers. 'Just keep an eye out,' he ordered, a little surprised that he even needed to have this discussion with his servant. It was Merlin who had the most experience in spying on others and working out the clues. Arthur was still relatively new to this whole spying business. It should be Merlin who was telling him what to do. On the other hand, Arthur knew Lucas relatively well – as well as anyone could know that man, he supposed – so he might know if anything was amiss.

Merlin didn't say another word, caught up in his own thoughts as they made their way to the alley and then transported onto the landing in front of Lucas's front door. There was a risk of being seen in doing that, but the landing was abandoned and there was no one to notice them.

'Did you bring a key?' Merlin asked.

Arthur threw his servant a withering glance. 'Since when have you needed any keys to enter a building, Merlin?'

The servant blushed in embarrassment. Arthur could not really fault him for it though. They both were still rather new to this whole using-magic-out-in-the-open thing, so it was hardly a surprise that Merlin had not remembered. Some habits were hard to break. Goodness knew that Arthur still had trouble handling it all. He sometimes still felt like calling the guards whenever he caught Merlin in the process of cleaning his boots magically. He had been brought up to be wary of sorcery and almost everything he had seen in his life had only strengthened that view. Magic was dangerous. Consequently, Merlin was dangerous. He was quite possibly the most dangerous man Arthur had ever met or would ever meet. But Merlin was also on his side, which meant that he was not a danger to him. Still, it took some getting used to the changed situation.

And apparently he was not the only one who needed some time to adapt to the changes. Merlin, Arthur had come to learn, had taught himself to do things the normal way and sometimes he would even forget that there was a different way he could use to get a job done. The key issue was a fine example of that.

He didn't bother with an answer though. '_Tospringe_,' he whispered, making the door unlock itself. Arthur would have to admit that this was a lot easier than to bother with keys.

He had only been in Lucas's flat twice. The first time had been when he had stayed with the man on his first visit – if it could be called that – and the second time when he had visited a month ago. He had been meant to go back before dark, but a thunderstorm and the enormous traffic jams it caused had made him change his plans. It wasn't much to go on, but he knew the place better than Merlin. More importantly, he knew Lucas.

The flat was neat and tidy, and just as impersonal as Arthur remembered. If he had not seen the bookcase in the living room, he would never have believed that anyone lived here. But Lucas owned a wide range of books in both English and Russian, which reflected his tastes. But books would probably not help them in finding any clues.

Arthur was already regretting this little outing. When he had set out on this mission, he had believed that he would be able to spot the hints he'd been looking for within a few seconds. Well, to tell the truth, he had hoped rather than believed that Lucas would leave something in plain sight for all to see, but he remembered that this was one of the most foolish things he could have done, because in the back of his head he'd known this was not going to be easy.

_It was not easy for Lucas when he endured torture at Morgana's hands_, he reminded himself. Life was almost never easy.

'Lucas?' he called, hoping against hope that the spy had just overslept, which admittedly wasn't likely, because he was an insomniac if ever he'd met one. Still, he needed to be sure. 'Lucas, are you home?'

His calls were met by silence. It wasn't unexpected, but it was a disappointment. It would mean that he would have to search the flat and go through the man's personal belongings to see what story they would tell. And a message they might contain, but Arthur was not sure if he would have the skill to read it. This spying world was so different from the world he was used to, and so very much more complicated. A foray into the twenty-first century sometimes made him feel as if he was trying to play a game that he did not fully understand and nevertheless he was trying to pretend to know what he was doing, for fear he would be found out as a liar if he didn't. It was not a pleasant feeling at all. It was as if he was a child all over again, trying and failing to keep up with the grown-ups.

'Check the bedroom and the bathroom,' he told Merlin, trying to sound as if he had a plan. 'I'll check the kitchen and living room.'

The kitchen turned out to be frustratingly free of any evidence on inspection, as Arthur had already feared. His own inability to hunt down clues was starting to both frustrate and annoy him. Give him a normal hunt any day. It was very well possible that Lucas had left a message in the kitchen, spelled out in coffee beans or something, but if that was the case, he was unable to find and read it.

Praying that the living room had more to offer, he turned there. Lucas valued his books, he knew, so maybe that was where he should start. Someone might write a message on the inside of the cover, or scribbled next to the text. Lucas could have done the same, but it was going to be a time-consuming job.

He would save that for last and first see if there were no other clues to be found. And so he knelt down to look underneath the sofa – it was a good thing his nobles didn't know what he was doing or they would all suffer a heart attack from the shock of seeing their king on his knees like an ordinary servant – inspected the coffee table intensively and subjected the carpet to a thorough examination as well. None of them yielded any answers.

'Did you find anything?' Merlin asked as he joined him again.

Arthur left the carpet to itself and turned around. 'Nothing so far,' he replied curtly; the lack of results was doing nothing to improve his mood in any way. 'You?'

The warlock shook his head. 'Nothing. If there is anything there, I can't find it.'

It was as annoying as it was predictable. Arthur got to his feet again and only then realised that he had missed out on something. On a small side table stood a phone and next to the phone lay a notebook. He had seen that the first time he was here as well. Lucas used it to write down messages he got by phone and the rest was reserved for reminders to himself to do the laundry, buy bread or call the repairman.

'See if you can find anything in the books,' he commanded Merlin. 'I'll check the notebook and then I'll come to help you.'

The notebook was filled with notes and most of them did not seem to be very important; the Senior Case Officer didn't write anything related to his work down in here. Nevertheless Arthur took his time to see if one note to buy bread or to phone his father might be just a message to his colleagues in a disguise.

There did not seem to be any and Arthur was increasingly frustrated with it, almost to a point that he wanted to hurl the book across the room. The messages, all written in blue ink, seemed to taunt him with their uselessness. And he was this close to making good on his impulse when the message in black ink almost jumped off the page: _Flight to hell, 5.15 am._

Flight to hell. There were only two places Lucas North would refer to as hell: Morgana's hovel and Russia. The first had lost its meaning, because Morgana was dead and could no longer hurt anybody. Besides, one couldn't fly to Camelot, unless it was on a dragon's back and that was not what Lucas would mean here. Russia was really the only option.

But this note ruled out the possibility of abduction. A planned flight, that had to mean he went of his own volition. But why? What on earth could drive Lucas to willingly return to the land of his nightmares? Things just didn't add up.

He speed-read the other notes in the book in search for answers, keeping an eye out for the black ink, which seemed to have been used deliberately for this message. It was a wild guess, but one that paid off when he came across another black-inked note. It were just numbers this time and at first it puzzled the king. _A telephone number_, his mind then supplied. To anyone living in this day and age that would probably be the obvious conclusion, one they'd reach within half a second of first seeing it. But Arthur had gone most of his life without any of the complicated devices they used around here – and was glad of it – and did not recognise it straight away. But when he did, pieces of the puzzle started falling into place.

Arthur Pendragon dialled the number and hoped to God he had not made a huge mistake in acting as he did.

**Lucas**

Moscow was unchanged, Lucas observed as he left the airport and made his way towards a taxi. It felt and looked exactly the same as it did eight years ago, with the minor difference that there seemed to be more people around. He had a strange feeling of déjà vu as he crossed the street. This was the way he had also gone about things when he had last come here and there was no way he would be able to banish the memories of that operation from his mind anytime soon.

_Stop wallowing, North._ His mental voice sounded remarkably like Ros these days, especially when he needed the mental kick in the behind to get going. _This is not going to get you any nearer to your asset._

Fortunately Harry had provided him with an address, written on a piece of paper he had found in the envelope, because it was only after his boss had hung up that he realised he had absolutely no clue as to where he could find this Maria Korachevsky. But he could not go there by taxi. If Harry had been set up, as he had claimed, then the traitor must be aware that they were onto him – or her. Once again a small voice in the back of his head was quick to remind him that Ros had been aware of Sugarhorse and Harry searching for intelligence.

He slapped it down immediately. He liked to think that if Ros was up to something, he would have noticed it by now. Besides, Harry was like a father to her and she was utterly loyal to her team. She would not betray any member of said team. And there were more ways of finding out information than to hear it from the horse's mouth. He should have known that.

It did not change the fact that at home everything could have gone to hell for all he knew, which meant that he had to go by Moscow Rules, a name that seemed rather appropriate in this city. For all intents and purposes he was on enemy territory now and it was as dangerous for him here as it had been for officers during the Cold War, when the protocol had been invented. If the traitor became aware of his absence, the chances were high that he would soon have the FSB on his trail. And since he had no ambition to repeat eight years in his own personal form of hell, that meant he would have to avoid CCTV covered areas and take back streets as much as he possibly could. If he truly did get the Russians after him, he would make it more difficult for them than the last time.

Of course he was not at all planning on making it easy on them and fortunately his rather intimate knowledge of the Russian language and the Russian ways would make it so much easier to blend in. His marriage to Elizabeta had been good for something then, he observed wryly, before pushing the memory of her to the back of his mind. She was gone from his life, would never be part of it again, and he would have to let her go. Clinging to the past would not do him any good, nor would it be any help to Harry.

His thoughts drifted to the head of Section D then. _I'm being set up_, he had said. Lucas had no idea in what way he was being set up, but he had a lingering and growing suspicion that the traitor was setting Harry up to look like the traitor. If that was the case, he may even be arrested now. Now there was an unwelcome thought.

He really would have to slip under the radar, not only to avoid any unfortunate run-ins with his former captors, but also to make sure the traitor in Section D would not become aware of where he was. Malcolm, Connie or Ros? He still didn't know and he still didn't want to even consider any of them at all. He knew all of them, liked all of them. The very thought that one of those three had sold him out was unbearable and he found himself hoping that blame could just be pinned on Richard Dolby, whom nobody even seemed to like.

He got out of the taxi and bought a breakfast at the nearest shop, small talking the shop personnel while he was at it. None of them seemed to suspect that he was not a native Russian and when the girl behind the counter asked in which part of the city he lived, he felt his confidence grow. He could still do this. He gave her a false address and then left the shop, hoping that things would go as smoothly as they had gone just now.

He ate as he walked, giving the impression of some businessman late for work. People did not give him a second glance as he passed them, too absorbed in their own little world to notice the British spy amongst them. Lucas knew better than to let that soothe him, though. It had gone as easily as this the last time too at first. The real trial was still ahead of him.

His phone began to vibrate in his pocket as he crossed one of the bigger streets and his first impulse was to freeze into place. He had not given this number to anyone, so no one could have reasonably called him. A second later common sense kicked in and he remembered writing the number down in the notebook in his living room. Someone would have found it and realised what it meant or he would not have been called.

Knowing he'd have to exercise caution – passing for a native Russian would be somewhat undermined if he was heard to be speaking English fluently – and being mindful of the fact that it may be the wrong person who called him, he answered his temporary mobile with just a curt 'Hello?'

'Lucas,' the voice on the other end of the line acknowledged. Lucas could have exhaled in relief when he realised it was Arthur Pendragon. If there was anyone who would not be the traitor they were looking for, it was the king of Camelot. 'How are you?' The only thing wrong with Arthur was that he seemed to treat him like he was made out of porcelain ever since Morgana had abducted him. Lucas knew he meant well, but fussing didn't suit Arthur and the spy had more than enough of Harry's worry already.

'I'll be fine,' he replied briskly. _As soon as I am out of here_. 'You're in the flat? Are you alone?' He needed to know if he could talk freely.

'Merlin's here, but he doesn't count.' Arthur's answer was flippant, but sincere. 'And the emperor of Rome is quite worried for you, but she's stuck at work.' Lucas only just caught himself from chuckling out loud when he remembered that Ros had indeed introduced herself like that when they had first accidentally run in on one another, but the mirth quickly came to an end when he realised Arthur was using code language. And here the king hesitated, as if he was wondering how to convey information without giving too much away to people who may be listening in, which meant there was a distinct opportunity of people listening in. Arthur wasn't one for caution; he was more the reckless type. Something must have brought this change about.

And he had to be careful how he phrased his questions as well. For all he knew the FSB was lurking about around here somewhere. Speaking English might be suspicious, but he wouldn't be the only Englishman around, not in a city as big as this one. 'Can you give her my regards when you see her next?' he asked. It was a risk, but one he was willing to take. Ros could not be the traitor. He simply refused to believe that of the one person who'd always backed him up. Friends were more okay than colleagues, something he'd always more or less known. 'And tell her I'll soon be back to annoy her.' Ros would know what it meant, he hoped. 'And while you're at it, say hello to my dad as well, will you?'

There was a short silence in which it was all too likely that Arthur decoded his speech. 'That might be difficult,' he answered eventually. 'He's rather stuck downstairs, courtesy of the big boss.'

Another silence followed as Arthur again sought for the right words. The king was not a spy, would never be one, but Lucas appreciated the effort he made to move in a world he barely understood. He was slow to adapt, but he made an effort when the situation asked for it, as he was doing now.

'Ah, the one colleague who is not okay,' Lucas understood, while at the same time wondering what the hell Dolby thought he was doing, before realising that thinking and Richard Dolby usually didn't occupy the same room.

He tried and failed to suppress the shiver that was going down his spine at the mention of Harry being stuck downstairs. There was only one sort of place he knew to be there and that was not a place he wanted to see his boss in, especially not if he was "stuck" there. It should not have come as a surprise, but he felt slightly nauseous all the same. He knew what it was like to be caught in a cell, being interrogated like that. True, MI-5 didn't go as far as the FSB in their interrogation techniques, but there were more ways to make a man's life a hell. And Harry was not as young as he had once been.

'He's more than a bit not okay,' Arthur growled. 'He's brought in the in-laws as well. Oh, and I'm afraid he stole your father's chair too. The emperor is none too pleased about it either.'

Internal Security on the Grid and Dolby in Harry's office. Things were even worse than he had expected. Small wonder that Ros was less than pleased. If Lucas knew her at all, she must be about ready to tear Dolby to pieces with her bare hands by now, even more so because Dolby never ceased his picking at her. Well, at least she had one knight in shining armour to protect her from the most rude comments Dolby threw her way; he had been walking on eggshells around the king of Camelot since he learned of his identity.

Lucas glanced around him, but no one seemed to take any notice of him and so far he hadn't spotted any faces he recognised either. If the FSB had a surveillance team on his trail, it should be quite extensive. It would seem he was clear for now, but it would be best to get moving as soon as possible. 'Tell her I'm fishing and I hope I can bring in a big one for my dad.'

'I will.' Arthur's promises always sounded like he was making a solemn vow, but right now it was the reassurance he needed. 'Oh, and don't call unless you have to.' Meaning: anyone could listen in. 'I think we're okay now, but I'll be going back to the emperor now, so…'

'I get it,' Lucas said. He'd known he would be on his own on this op, but it did not mean he had to like it and being in contact with a friend, someone who was on his side, had temporarily subsided the tension he'd felt before. Now the adrenaline kicked back in again, and not necessarily in a good way. 'Take care, Arthur. We may have a bad apple in our very own little fruit bowl.'

'I know,' the king replied. Lucas could almost hear the nod. 'The emperor told me.'

That was an interesting development. Ros had apparently briefed him about Sugarhorse, which was not like her. Lucas doubted the rest of the team was even aware of it. But maybe it wasn't that strange after all. Arthur and Ros had been allies during Operation Camelot as well. She would know Arthur could be trusted. And she would need him on side if Dolby truly was trying to take control of Section D.

_And there's only one way to put an end to that: get the intelligence and find out who the mole really is._ And he had wasted enough time on this call. Every minute he lingered here, was another minute in which he could be discovered. 'Good. I'll be back soon.' He hung up before the king had the chance to respond.

The streets still looked normal and there was no sign that there was any surveillance on him, but he still turned quickly and disappeared into the crowds. Time to get that intel.

* * *

**I hope you enjoyed that. Next time: Merlin and Mordred have a little heart to heart. Until then, please review?**


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

**Ros**

The Grid was busier than a bee colony in high summer, even when Dolby had retreated into the office that would always be Harry's in Ros's mind. The very sight of that bastard sitting there made her want to grab him by the collar and forcefully escort him from the premises, but that would be professional suicide and the last thing she should do now was to put her career on the line when both Harry and Lucas were gone.

Harry was the solid rock on which this team was built, she observed, and it was obvious that his officers craved his leadership. He was the one that kept them all together, and while Ros could lead as well, she was not as well liked as the Section Head and she knew it. Her orders were obeyed, but not with quite as much enthusiasm and that stung. And normally she would have Lucas and his easy charm as a second in command whenever Harry pulled one of his disappearing acts again. He usually only had to ask and smile and everyone tripped over themselves to carry out his request. Ros's orders were only obeyed reluctantly; not everyone had quite forgotten the mistake she'd made with Yalta. Sometimes her life would be so much easier if people didn't dwell so much on the bloody past and started to get more concerned with the present and future.

_Yeah, and if Dolby wasn't such a dollophead, we'd not have this sodding situation to begin with._ Merlin's insult slipped in almost effortlessly; the word seemed to suit Dolby quite perfectly. _So get a grip and get back to work. Harry's fate may just depend on it._

She told the team that dealing with the crisis took precedence, but that didn't stop her from doing an investigation of her own while she waited for the first reports to come in. Harry had said that they would have a mole within MI-5 and as much as she didn't want to consider it, there was a possibility that this mole was working in Section D. So she had taken the personnel files and started digging. If the traitor did work here, then he or she could undermine everything they were working on now. She had a duty to find out who it was and put an end to what they were doing.

Now she was staring at Lucas's file, even if she was very loath to do so. She had seen his bordering-on-suicidal-loyalty during Operation Camelot, but he was also the team member who had the most experience with the Russians and the FSB. He had been held captives by them for eight years and his ex-wife was working for the FSB still as far as she was aware. Yes, he had given them Arkady Kachimov, but in the greater scheme of things, he was barely a blip on the radar. What the Russians were doing now, was much bigger and he could still be a plant, a sleeper, used only when the biggest crisis of the past few years came around.

_Stop it!_ Ros snapped at herself. _He isn't a traitor. I know he isn't_. It was nothing more than intuition and that didn't count for anything with people like Dolby, but it was often the best asset they had in this line of work.

She was stopped from forcing herself to acknowledge just how naïve this train of thought was by the whooshing of the pods. A moment later they spat out Arthur and Merlin. The latter made a beeline for Jo's desk – _surprise, surprise_ – as the former marched over to Ros's. He was excited, judging by the determined spark in his eyes and the way he walked. It appeared to be a good excitement. Ros could not deny her relief, not even to herself this time.

With some amusement she noticed that Arthur did not even look in Dolby's direction, never mind that he was about to take his report there. She had not expected him to do that; Arthur's notion of loyalty was to a person, not to the one who just happened to be sitting in the chair in that office. She'd never been so grateful for that before.

'Found something?' she asked briskly.

Arthur made the mistake of looking over his shoulder to see if no one was listening in, which fortunately they weren't. 'Well…'

Ros interrupted him. 'Don't look around you as if you were a nervous junkie smuggling drugs into the country,' she snapped at him. 'It's the classic giveaway for illegal activity.' Oh, she knew he was on side, but sometimes he was suffering from a case of stupidity that should just be punishable by law. And he needed to work on his spying skills if he was to be any use in this operation.

Arthur visibly only just caught himself before he could make the same mistake again, but he did favour her with the look that told her that he was the king and she could not address him in such a manner. Ros didn't care. In here he was her subordinate. What he did in Camelot was his business, but here he did as he was told or else he was welcome to a visit to the paper archive.

'What did you find?' There was no doubt he had found something; the excited facial expression was indication enough and Arthur could not keep a secret to save his life.

'He's in Russia,' the king reported. 'There was a note in the book next to te phone: _Flight to hell, 5.15 am_. Everything else was in blue ink, that was in black. And there was a phone number as well.'

Ros was torn between complimenting him for his quick mind – because he _had_ done a good job in working it all out – and moaning out loud for the complication this presented. Lucas may be on a black op, or he could be betraying them this very moment. _Then why leave the bloody note and the phone number to go with that?_ The Section Chief was not ready to believe he had truly turned his back on them, but to leave the country just as all hell was breaking loose and it was obvious that there was a traitor at large? That was not the act of an innocent man. Still, there was the note. Surely that had to mean something?

_Lucas is a very skilled and resourceful operative_, Harry had once told her. _He could be playing you, knowing how strongly you feel about being loyal to your team. _That was when they had all believed that Lucas had taken Arthur to Morgana. Then he had left them the tracking devices and the _Colleagues are okay_ note. A declaration of loyalty, a plea for trust and a cry for help, she had thought then. This, this was just the same.

And that decided her, and not just because it fit in with her own hopes concerning her colleague. This felt almost exactly the same as it had been during Operation Camelot. Whatever the explanation was, it had to be a good one.

'Did you try the phone number?' she demanded, hoping and praying he would say no. Even if Lucas had used a pay as you go phone – most likely since they had not been able to reach him on his normal phone – Arthur's was registered and there was a good chance that he had been compromised.

Of course that was hoping for too much. 'Yes.' He looked altogether pleased with himself.

Ros didn't reciprocate the sentiment. 'Bloody fool,' she hissed at him. 'You are aware that all our conversations are recorded by internal security?' Sometimes even a toddler had more common sense than the king of Camelot. She appreciated his efforts, she really did, but sometimes he was too dim for his own good, or hers.

The result was an indignant look. 'We used code language.' He drew himself up to his full height, even more effective because she was still sitting down. 'Dolby won't have learned anything useful from us.'

Ros sincerely doubted that, but nevertheless gestured for him to carry on talking. After all, the damage was already done. She might as well find out what he had learned. If Dolby would get that information, she saw no reason why she shouldn't have it. And it may hold some answers. They were in desperate need of those right bloody now.

When information was not forthcoming right away, she fixed him with as stern a look as she could manage. 'Well, are you going to spit it out already or will you have me wait till Christmas?'

Arthur took a chair, a frown in his forehead as he tried to remember what had been said. 'He said I should give my regards to you and that he hoped he'd be back soon to annoy you again.'

Despite the risk he'd taken in even mentioning her name to Lucas, Ros could barely stop herself from cracking a relieved smile. Friends only annoy you, they had agreed, which meant Lucas still considered that friendship to be in existence. It could be a ploy still; Harry had warned her that he was skilled and Ros herself had seen him turn people as if it was something he just did between breakfast and lunch, but she didn't think that this was like that. She had been playing this game for a long time as well, so she should bloody well hope she knew when someone was trying to play her. This did not feel like it, not when their own private code came into it.

'You mentioned my name?' She fixed Arthur with as stern a stare as she could manage. Goodness knew she missed a senior presence on the Grid, someone who could give the commands _with_ her. Connie and Malcolm were both senior officers, but they were no leaders. It had been quite obvious that they, so like the junior staff, were all looking to her for guidance. She felt as if she had a bunch of small kids under her wings, all of a particular stupid kind too. _I'm starting to know what Atlas felt like here_.

Arthur snorted dismissively. 'Of course not. I'm not an idiot.' _Allow me to disagree_. 'I told you, we used code language.'

And Arthur and code language were just about as compatible as Ros and medieval fashion sense. '_What_ did you call me?'

'The emperor of Rome,' Arthur retorted. He even conjured up something of a lopsided grin that told her he'd spent too much time hanging around Lucas. 'You remember, right?'

Of course she remembered her own heavily sarcastic reply to Arthur's first introduction of himself. Unlike a king she could mention, she didn't deal in stupidity as a daily job. So she didn't even bother with an answer as she went on. 'What else?' They were running out of time here and Arthur was stalling, even if it was probably not deliberately. It was just his way.

'I needed to tell you that he was fishing and that he'd bring back a big one for you and his dad.' Arthur's tone of voice and facial expression told her he was none too charmed by her manners, but Ros could not care. She was too busy decoding Lucas's message. Fishing would mean that he was looking for information. And he would bring it back for her and for Harry. The fact that he had referred to Harry as his dad could mean that the relationship between them was mending, might even mean that Harry had been the one who had put him up to this. It would not be impossible.

A thought struck her then. What if Lucas had been sent to make contact with a Sugarhorse asset? It would relate to this crisis, Harry being set up _and_ it might offer an explanation for why Lucas had gone to Russia of all places to get this information of a yet unspecified nature. And if that was the case, he could be in tremendous danger, especially with a traitor around who seemed to be far better informed than Ros was comfortable with.

'_Shit_,' she cursed.

'It gets worse,' Arthur informed her. 'He told me to tell you we have a bad apple in our "very own little fruit bowl."'

A traitor on the Grid. Ros insides turned to ice in a matter of seconds. She had feared that would be the case, but she did not have any confirmed information until now. MI-5 was a big organisation and the mole could have been anywhere, until Arthur told her otherwise. And she was in no position to doubt Lucas's words. Better safe than sorry in this case. And that meant that she didn't know who to trust anymore. Anyone could be a Russian mole.

She shook her head as she corrected herself. No, not anyone. The ancient additions to the team were out of the question for the obvious reason – although she sure as hell was going to demand answers out of Arthur as to why he had thought it a good idea to take on a young man by the name of Mordred. Had he no knowledge of legends at all? – and so were Ben and Jo. They had not been in the Service for long enough to be involved in anything. She thought she could rule out anyone not on the core team as well. They simply would have no way to get access to the relevant information.

That only left five people: Dolby, Malcolm, Connie, Harry and Lucas. She crossed the last two off the list immediately. Lucas would not be a traitor, she would bet a year's salary on that, and the same was true for Harry. The problem was that it would not be anything easier to believe of either Malcolm or Connie. Ros may want to pin the blame on Dolby, because she so disliked him, but that would be both unprofessional and unfair. Nevertheless, suspect until proven innocent. She would have to tread with care around him. And she had no evidence whatsoever to base her assessments of Harry and Lucas on either. As she had been taught during training: officers didn't make their decisions based on personal feelings and intuition. She could not, _would_ not fall into that trap. The rest of the team was already _this_ close to acting like a bunch of headless chickens, so if she lost it, the end would be lost too. _And Sugarhorse as well. Get a grip, Myers._

'Right,' she said, knowing it was anything but. 'Keep this to yourself as long as you can. No idle chatter over a cup of coffee to your magical friend over there, or your new adoring puppy dog,' she added as an afterthought when she caught sight of Mordred again. 'Get on to Laurie Werner and arrange a meet. Get everything you can from her on the Russian plans. They're bound to have assets as well. I don't care how you get it, just make sure you get it as soon as you can. Threaten her if you have to, but try to minimalize the diplomatic fall-out this time. I've got enough of that on my hands as it is already.'

Arthur nodded. 'They're not getting anything?'

Ros shot him a wry look. 'We don't have anything. But whatever you do, if you as much as mention the words Sugarhorse, Harry or betrayal you won't be seeing Camelot again. Is that clear?' Last thing she needed was the cousins all over this.

The king gave a curt nod of the head. 'I'll get right onto it.'

He was gone before Ros could comment, so she directed her glare at his back. 'You'd better.'

**Merlin**

Merlin had certainly had better days than this one and he knew it. Part of him already regretted coming to London today. Why could Lord Harold not have launched into one of his trademark rants about the new laws on magic? Or maybe a foreign monarch could have stopped by for a discussion about something important as trade. That would have prevented them from coming here just as well.

But that was a selfish thing to be thinking and he knew it well. He owed these people a favour. After Lucas had been rescued, Harry Pearce could have decided to go home and leave the Morgana matter to them. The traitor had been discovered and unmasked, as was the bargain he had struck with them, so their obligation to Camelot had been fulfilled. Morgana was no longer a risk to British security, which was what they normally concerned themselves with. There had been no reason for them to stay, yet they had stayed and they had admittedly played a huge part in killing Morgana. Yes, they had done it out of vengeance, hate and retribution, but they had done it all the same. Harry could very easily have decided that national security in Britain was more important.

And that meant Merlin owed it to him to try and fight for him now that he was falsely accused of treason, because Merlin did not for one second believe that the allegations against him were genuine. He did not know the Section Head well, but that was clear as daylight. Moreover, Ros didn't believe it either. The warlock was loath to question her judgement after she had gotten the right of it several times in a row during the events that led to Morgana's death.

He heard a muttered curse from Jo, who had occupied the desk opposite him, as she put the phone back, presumably after the umpteenth official had hung up on her. She had been chasing down phone and email records from the deceased Mr Borkhovin since they arrived and during his brief time away with Arthur that had apparently not changed one bit.

'Nothing yet?' he inquired from over a stack of paperwork that detailed Alexander Borkhovin's personal life.

'Nothing suspicious from the few people that didn't hang up on me right away.' The junior officer sounded frustrated. 'I need to talk to Connie, see if she's heard anything useful I might follow up on.' She shoved her chair back with more force than strictly necessary and stalked off to the intelligence analyst.

Merlin at least could understand that feeling, but not for the same reason. He was being kept out of the loop deliberately by his king and Miss Death-Glare Myers and he didn't know why. What he did know was that it was frustrating. He knew Arthur didn't trust him around Mordred, but this was not about Mordred now, was it? Ros's motivations were a little clearer, but not much.

Arthur had only told him the bare minimum and had even gone as far as to send him to check the guest bedroom extensively for clues while he made the phone call to the person Merlin strongly suspected to be Lucas. He had listened in, but they had been using code speech and Merlin had not been able to learn anything from Arthur's end of the conversation, nothing he didn't already know.

_Merlin is here, but he doesn't count_. That was something Arthur had said. It was a flippant comment, probably nothing more than just a joke, but it hurt all the same. Lately he was feeling like he was being pushed to the side-lines, his place stolen by Mordred and Lucas. Good grief, even Ros seemed to be more important than Merlin these days, given the fact that Arthur had practically run over to the Section Chief's desk the moment they had emerged from the pods. They had been having their tête-à-tête ever since.

When they first came here, Arthur had been the useless one and Merlin had been the quickest to adapt. Now it seemed their roles had been reversed. The king moved around here as if he had been working with Section D for years and his servant was the one who felt lost now. He still didn't entirely get what the crisis was all about – that explanation too had been for Arthur's ears only – and now he was investigating a man's death without knowing how it even related to this crisis. There was more to it and it had to do with Harry's arrest and Lucas's mysterious disappearance, but what exactly it was, was still not clear.

'You've been avoiding me, Emrys.'

The remark came rather suddenly, startling Merlin out of his musings which had long since lost any relation to the file he had been looking at. Nevertheless he thought he concealed his reaction well, giving off the impression that he had not heard Mordred's words. If anything, talking to the soon-to-be knight was not very high on his to-do list.

'_Emrys_.' The name was in his mind as well as in the air this time.

Merlin swivelled his head in Mordred's direction. 'Don't. Do. That.' The low hiss came from between clenched teeth. He had hated that from the start. It felt as if Mordred was actually in his head, not a thing he'd like in any other situation, never mind in the one they were in right now. Mordred was an enemy of Arthur's and therefore one of his, even if the king was still in denial. 'You can't do that in here,' he added, looking up just long enough to favour the boy with as stern a look as he could manage. With any luck it had the Ros Myers quality he'd been aiming for. 'If Dolby catches wind of this, we'll both be in more trouble than we'd like.'

Mordred's head turned in the direction of the office, where Dolby could be seen rapping orders into a phone while he studied the contents of a file in front of him at the same time, rendering Merlin's warning rather unnecessary.

And Mordred knew that too. 'Emrys, why are you avoiding me?' He at least heeded the warning to not use the mind-talk again, for which he should be grateful.

But he was not planning on answering that question and at least he had a good excuse to ignore the lad for now. He had a file to study and Ros would not be pleased if she were to find out he'd spent the day chatting with his archenemy. He reached out for a few papers he needed, only to find that they had gone from the desk and were now held by Mordred, who looked unwilling to part with them.

Reluctantly he had to admit that the lad was clever. Too clever maybe. 'I have not been avoiding you,' he replied, knowing full well that he had. The honest answer however would have been 'Because I don't trust you' and that was something he felt he could not say, not yet at least.

Mordred didn't buy it. 'Yes, you have,' he said forcefully. 'Don't lie to me. You've been hostile to me since I saved your life.' He threw up his hands, papers still in them, in the air in what appeared to be exasperation. 'And I don't understand it. You and I are on the same side. We both mean to help Arthur.' The expression on his face softened somewhat. 'We both have magic.'

_That doesn't change anything_. It might even make matters worse. '_I shall never forgive this, Emrys, and I shall never forget,_' he quoted. Unlike Mordred, he was not even trying to play the sympathy card. Softening up would not help him here.

It might, though. The memory of Lucas, driven to go to the extremes partly because of Merlin's harsh and unforgiving attitude was still fresh in his mind. How much of this would be a self-fulfilling prophecy if he wasn't careful? He could do the same again: drive Mordred to hate him, hate Camelot, hate Arthur and all just because Merlin found himself incapable to ignore a prophecy that, if Arthur was right about this, had already been prevented. Could he take that risk?

The answer presented itself immediately. Yes, he could. He could, because the alternative was exposing Arthur to danger and that he could never stand for. Lucas had once accused him of not being able to do whatever it took, and he was determined to prove the man wrong.

'You can't be telling me that has all changed now,' he said sharply.

Mordred looked like he was a little out of his depth, desperate maybe even in a way. 'You cannot be holding that against me now, surely?' he asked incredulously.

Merlin's stern look at him answered that he did.

The incredulity increased in tenfold. 'I only was a child then!' he exclaimed. 'This happened years ago. I didn't know what I was saying. Or doing.' The last two words were spoken in a way that suggested he was ashamed of what had happened then.

And that was something Merlin found altogether difficult to believe. 'You had just killed three Camelot guards in cold blood,' he retorted icily. He may have interpreted Lucas's actions in the wrong way, but there was no chance he could make that mistake here. Murder was murder and he had seen it. Lucas at least had never sunk that low. This was not the same situation, no matter what Arthur liked to think. Mordred had already proven to be one very dangerous enemy. 'Tell me how that was not a conscious decision.' He was fully aware that he was sounding like the Section Chief more and more by the minute. Normally that would have vexed him, today not so much.

This time he received a wry look for his troubles. 'Are you telling me that you've always been in complete control of your powers?'

He hadn't. Goodness knew he'd driven his mother to madness by levitating objects he hadn't been meaning to levitate, accidentally changing the colour of old man Simmons's coat and setting fire to the neighbours' laundry. But that was still a long way from killing anyone.

Mordred interpreted his silence in the wrong way. 'I was scared, Emrys, and angry. I panicked. Yes, I wanted to get away from the guards and the knights, but I swear to you that I never intended for those men to die. My powers, they got away from me.' He shook his head. 'I did not know how to control and use my gift then and the panic didn't help. All I wanted was to get away. I had no reason to trust them after all.'

Merlin eyed him warily. 'And you do now?' he asked disbelievingly. 'Suddenly you just happen to appear, out of the blue, saving our lives at the most opportune moment imaginable.' He'd found that suspicious right from the start, even if Arthur did not seem bothered with it in any way. 'Is all suddenly forgiven and forgotten now?'

It was clearly visible that Mordred was getting annoyed. And when he spoke, it was audible too. 'I am a Druid, Merlin.' The warlock wondered if he had gone down in said Druid's opinion now that he was no longer addressed by his official Druid name. 'I was allowed by the law to return to Camelot without having to fear for my life. Change truly is coming at last. Merlin, even you cannot deny that. And you know the prophecies. You know what Arthur is destined to do.' The enthusiasm was unmistakable now.

_And I know what you are destined to do, even if you've conveniently forgotten about it_. 'I do know them,' he replied coolly.

The very non-enthusiastic reply clearly didn't register on Mordred's radar. 'Everything we've been hoping for is finally happening and I want to be there to see it. Don't you understand?' He almost pleaded his case.

As it was, the warlock understood that better than anyone; it had been his life's work. Of course he wanted to see it come true. _Which is why Mordred needs to disappear_. 'I am just looking out for him,' he pointed out, making it look like this had nothing to do with Mordred at all, even when it was obvious that it had.

Mordred fixed him with a sad look as he finally gave Merlin his papers back. 'I am not an enemy.'

Merlin could not in all truth agree with that and so he looked frantically for a distraction, finding one in the returning figure of Jo, with Connie, looking like a very dissatisfied duck the way she walked, hot on her heels. It was like an answer to his prayers.

'Anything?' he asked as the junior officer took her seat again.

She pulled a face. 'So far the Russians have shut down every avenue we could explore.' She threw in a snort. 'And to think that I thought those MI-6 leads sounded quite strong… Nothing. There's just nothing.'

Connie caught up then. 'Are you surprised?'

Jo shook her head. 'No. It's almost…' Here she hesitated. 'It's almost as if they know we're digging and are trying to stop us from poking our noses in.' She turned to Connie. 'And I still can't quite believe what they're accusing Harry of, can you?' To Merlin it sounded like a plea for reassurance.

'Don't be absurd,' the elderly woman said. 'I'm just surprised they're taking so long to realise their own stupidity.'

Merlin didn't really know the intelligence analyst, not well enough to like her anyway, but they were in agreement over this. He might even start to like her for it.

This newfound liking was short-lived though when Connie turned to him. 'Anything interesting in that file, Merlin?' she inquired as she looked at it, which would mean that she knew full well he hadn't read a letter since Jo had left. Fortunately she saved him at least from having to give an honest answer to that by pre-empting it herself. 'We're dealing with a crisis here, young man, not a tea party. Do get back to work and save the chatter for the lunch break. You as well,' she added with a stern look at Mordred. 'No dawdling on _this _floor. Ros!' She marched on without sparing either of them as much as a second glance, leaving the two of them as if they were chastised school boys, equal in that regard. It was only when he was about to return to the file that he realised that Arthur was nowhere in sight.

* * *

**Next time: Ros fears she's going paranoid and Arthur renews his acquaintance with Miss Werner.**


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

**Ros**

Ros was starting to fear she might come down with a case of extreme paranoia. The moment she had learned that there was a traitor in their very own "little fruit bowl" practically everyone had become a potential traitor and nothing anyone said could be taken at face value anymore. And Ros hated that. Outside of work they could never be really honest with anyone, not even their own families – those who had them, that was – and colleagues were the only ones they could be open with. That principle however had now gone right out of the window. All of this, combined with the crisis they were still facing and Dolby making himself comfortable in Harry's office, made her snappy and ill-tempered. For goodness sake, Merlin and Mordred seemed to be thinking this was the best time to start playing at interrogation, of all things to do. Had Arthur and Merlin perhaps magically taken each other's personality or something?

But it didn't matter now. What did was that they were just as close as to finding out what Borkhovin's death had to do with the missile defence shield crisis as they had been when they set out on their quest of finding answers. Answers had not been found, frustration had.

_Don't you dare give up, Myers_, she reprimanded herself. _They're looking to you so you'd better keep that head of yours and do something_. And there was a small ray of light on the horizon. Lucas was fishing, for a big fish that, if she had interpreted his message right, would get all of them out of trouble. Not an excessive luxury, more like a bloody necessity of life. If she was very lucky, he may even identify their traitor. _If the FSB doesn't get to him first._

Well, that was the reason she kept her mouth well and truly shut about what she knew. Ros could do silent like the grave. The thought that she had come dangerously close to being _in_ one she banished to the back of her head. She didn't have time for sentimentality. She had leads to chase and however gloomy it may look, they were not yet defeated. With any luck Arthur would get something useful from the CIA and Lucas was still out there too. Since he would not exactly be volunteering for another eight year stay in one of the FSB's five star resorts, he would take care. She didn't need to ask it of him. It didn't stop her from worrying though.

_Stop it!_ she snapped at herself. _He's a grown man. He doesn't need you to hold his hand every step of the bloody way. _Ros blamed the friendship. That was the problem with them: they made her care too much and she could not afford it, not while she was the only thing keeping this place from falling apart.

To distract herself she demanded a progress report from Connie, who reported that Borkhovin apparently had been complaining about his heart for months, so his heart attack may still be natural. It could be. Then his death would just be a coincidence. Only the mere thought of the word made Ros's skin crawl. Coincidence did not exist, not in this line of work. There was more here and she needed to find out whatever the hell it was.

_I wish Harry was here_. The thought sneaked into her head again and she had to squash it before it could take up permanent residence there and cripple her indefinitely. _Well, he's not, so deal with it. _

Her sense of unease at hearing the word coincidence, even if only in her head, was justified as Malcolm announced that the man who had recently upgraded Borkhovin's IT systems, someone by the name of Chandra Paturi, had also died of a heart attack three days ago. He, unlike Borkhovin, had lived in Britain and that opened up possibilities, even if Ros inwardly fumed at having yet another possible avenue of investigation cut off at the same time. Whatever this Paturi fellow had seen or done, it was worth killing for and Ros would have given a month's worth of salary to find out what that was.

'Another coincidence?' she asked sarcastically.

Connie tilted her head. 'You can artificially induce a heart attack.' Apparently she was thinking along the same lines as Ros.

'Adenosine,' Jo understood. 'You can dose the victim without them knowing, by putting it on a pillow case or a phone receipt…'

_I know_. And ten to one that it was used to kill both Borkhovin and this IT man. 'Well, we're never going to see Borkhovin's blood reports.' But even the Russians could not prevent them from investigating their Mr Paturi a bit closer. Malcolm had come across him only by chance, so the FSB might not even know yet they were onto something, which Ros liked to keep that way for now. She turned to Jo. 'Find out where Chandra Paturi was treated and get hold of his post-mortem reports. See if he was ever given toxicological analysis.'

To her surprise however it was Connie who nodded. 'I'll get onto it.'

'No.' The refusal had left her mouth before she could even start to think it through and it was only a second later that her brain caught up with her and provided her with a reason for her behaviour. However much she disliked it, Connie was still on the list of people who could be the traitor and her eagerness to see to something that could be a major lead had set Ros's alarm bells off straight away. Post-mortem results were easy tampered with, as she knew from experience. She needed someone she could trust for the full hundred per cent on this. When all this was resolved and the intelligence analyst's name had been cleared, then she would apologise. Until then, she needed to keep her guard up. 'Jo, you do that,' she ordered. To try and take the edge of the harshness of her command, not something she particularly excelled in, she handed the personnel files to Connie. Nothing in there anyone could do something with, she hoped. 'Connie, take this lot back downstairs. Make sure Dolby doesn't see it.'

Everyone walked back to their desks, but Ros followed Malcolm. 'Adenosine is a naturally occurring substance,' he stressed. 'There's no reason for a pathologist to find it suspicious.'

Ros almost froze into place. What the hell was going on here? Was the technician now trying to make her believe that this was nothing she should be paying attention to? Like a traitor would do? She hated herself for her suspicion and instant wariness, yet another approach to this might cost her dearly if she trusted someone who might be working against them. Colleagues had suddenly ceased to be okay and Ros could feel the poisonous air of distrust infecting the Grid again. And she hated it with a passion.

'In fact, it might not even show up if the post-mortem was more than twenty-four hours after death,' Malcolm went on.

If he was the traitor, which Ros sincerely hoped he was not – her hopes were still firmly pinned on Dollophead Dolby – then the slightest slip-up could give her away. So she settled for a relaxed tone of voice as she replied. 'Well, we'll just have to only hope it wasn't.'

'Swindon General are sending over Paturi's post-mortem report,' Jo called. It was a good thing she called then, because Ros was about to lose it. Normally she would have relied on Malcolm and Connie in the absence of Harry, but now they were the very people she strongly suspected of treason. In this case, she truly was on her own.

Malcolm turned at her, eyes pleading, even if the rest of his face was just as composed as it usually was. 'You don't believe any of this, do you?'

Ros could only just suppress the urge to snort. 'What do you think?' Harry, a traitor? No, there were many things she could accept and there were even less things that took her by surprise these days, not after so long in the Service, but if Harry did turn out to be the mole, then she just might go into shock. And after that, she would probably resign. If she had been fooled so much by the man who was almost like a father to her, then it would be time to stop, because the job she did would not make any sense anymore after such an event. But she didn't think Harry really was a traitor. He _must_ have been set up. 'You go on,' she told Malcolm. 'I'll be right behind.' When he nodded, she called Merlin over. No matter how reluctant she would be to treat Harry as a mole, she needed to be sure and there was no way she would be allowed anywhere near that interrogation room. But there were more ways to skin a cat.

'Ros?' The warlock sounded a bit nervous, obviously suspected a dressing down for his unprofessional behaviour earlier, as he well should.

'Harry's being questioned in one of the interrogation rooms downstairs,' she informed him. 'I need to know what is going on in there.'

Fortunately she didn't have to spell it out for him this time. Understanding already dawned on his face. 'How am I going to do that if Dolby can't know?' he wondered. Well, at least he realised that Dolby should be kept out of the loop as much as possible, even when he demonstrated a remarkable inability to think a solution up for himself. Well, clearly one couldn't have everything.

'None of my business,' she told him. 'I don't care if you have to go to the bloody loo or that you'll have to lock yourself in some broom cupboard or other to get some privacy. Just do as you're told.' She knew she sounded too dismissive. Technically he wasn't even one of her subordinates and he was doing her a favour by helping them out as it was, but she couldn't help herself. Tension never did do her social skills any good.

Merlin nodded, but was clearly not ready to leave her alone. 'Where's Arthur?' He almost sounded accusing now, a tone of voice Ros never particularly cared for.

'Fishing,' she replied curtly. 'He'll be back.' And when she saw this was unlikely to do the trick of reassuring him, she added: 'For heaven's sake, Merlin, he's a grown man! He's not in any danger. The main risk he's in is that he'll be bored to death. Or annoyed to death. Either one. Miss Werner always did lack originality.'

She could see he got it, because he nodded and then turned around to do what he had been told to do. Ros marched over to Jo's desk, who held out a sheaf of papers for her to read. She explained that he had been given a full post-mortem after the heart attack and that the pathologist had been having suspicions, because the level of adenosine was four times what was normal. Murder. It was bloody murder.

She was just having this light bulb moment when Richard Dolby poked his suspicious head in, demanding what was going on.

_A tea party, sir_. The sarcastic remark was on the tip of her tongue, but she bit it back only just in time. 'We think we have a lead on what really happened to Borkhovin,' she answered, not bothering to look at him as she did so. Dolby may have taken control of Harry's office, but that didn't mean she would treat him with the same respect that she showed her real boss. The fact that he was practically radiating smugness did not make her like him any better.

'Good,' Dolby said. 'Because I've just heard from the Home Secretary. He's on his way. So we have very little time left to work out what the hell we can tell the Americans about what Moscow are going to do next.'

Ros was about to bite his head off for even suggesting that they were just here to do the CIA's dirty work for them. Heaven knew Ros was well aware that the CIA had a few tricks up their sleeve when a situation asked for it, so they must be desperate if they didn't think they could handle it themselves and sent in MI-5 to work it out instead. _And we are even more fools for giving them what they want_, the Section Chief thought venomously. She wouldn't make the mistake of operating with a group like Yalta ever again, but that didn't make their objectives any less true, just their methods wrong. _We're acting like bloody lapdogs for the Americans, playing go and fetch for them whenever they choose. _

But that sentiment would have to stay inside her head for now. Harry wouldn't be helped with her losing her job over such a stupid thing. Instead she relayed the information they had learned about Chandra Paturi's death from between clenched teeth with an icy edge of politeness that everyone in their senses knew was just a prelude to trouble.

'So, the Russians are lying,' Dolby observed. 'They did kill Borkhovin.' Ros never thought highly of Dolby's intelligence, or rather lack thereof, but today he seemed particularly slow on the uptake. As if there had ever been any real doubt about Borkhovin's death. There hadn't been in her mind.

The urge to reward the dollophead with a scathing put-down for his efforts might have been too strong for her if at that moment Ben had not come in, announcing that Borkhovin's file had been requested an awful – and therefore suspicious – lot of times. And the man who signed it out every time was named Hugo Prince.

She could not show her reaction to the world, but for her more and more pieces of the puzzle started falling into place. Hugo Prince had been one of the men who had worked on the Sugarhorse operation. He had been the one to request the file on Borkhovin. Could that really mean that he had been a Sugarhorse asset?

_Hold your horses_, Myers, she told herself. After all, it did not have to mean what she thought it meant. She knew the trap of connecting completely unrelated dots just because it was convenient. They needed proof before she would allow herself to float this idea, and even then she would only do so reluctantly. Dolby, after all, could still be the mole she was searching for.

Aforementioned proof was promptly provided to her by Malcolm, who had dug up a photograph of Borkhovin's post-mortem the Russians had posted on the net. There was something on his shoulder, which would make for the most important element in the photo, apart from them seeing that Borkhovin was really dead, which was old news to all those present. One of them may even have known about it before the deed was actually done.

'What's that mark on his shoulder?' she demanded, since no one else did. 'Can you get it closer?' A feeling in her gut told her this would turn up something she might not at all like, but shying away from the bad things in life had never been known to help them catch the terrorists before.

Malcolm did as she asked and the screen threw up something that vaguely looked like a horse, standing on a pedestal of some kind. A chill went down her spine. 'Closer still?' she asked. The tension was seeping through in her voice, though. She may be eager to connect some dots, but it would be quite difficult to not connect them when everything pointed in one direction only.

Her worst fears were confirmed when they got a better look at the tattoo on Borkhovin's shoulder. A rearing horse and not just any horse: Sugarhorse. Borkhovin was a Sugarhorse asset.

**Arthur**

It was somewhat of a relief to slip back behind the mask of his persona, Arthur found. For one thing, Aidan Parker was a lot more at ease in the world of spies and intelligence than Arthur Pendragon. Aidan knew what to do, how to act and he could conjure up put-downs of which Ros Myers might have approved, reluctantly though, mind. He also was nowhere near nervous about meeting with Laurie Werner.

That was one of the few things he actually had in common with Arthur. The king of Camelot was very much not impressed by the CIA liaison officer. Ros had once summarised her as consisting of crisp suit, silly smile and very limited intelligence with a touch of fake friendliness perfume and Arthur was not yet convinced she was wrong. Laurie Werner did have an incredibly big mouth though, but she was no match for Arthur, who at least could pride himself on having an even bigger one, according to Merlin. No worries on that account then.

Heaven knew there were plenty of other accounts to worry on; Harry, Lucas and that whole Sugarhorse business being right on top of the list. And the big question of it all was why he cared so much. Well, why he cared about Lucas was rather obvious. The man had almost gotten himself killed for Arthur's sake. Harry was a trickier case. But the spooks boss had been nice to him, had offered him aid in times of dire need. Therefore he should care and about the operation that was now exposed just when it was needed most. He owed a debt of life to these people. To turn away now would be a betrayal. And Arthur had seen far too much of that in his life already.

Arthur had not been in London as much as Merlin. He'd been here during what the spooks called Operation Camelot and only one time after. He was not as confident as Merlin about moving through London traffic and he sure didn't like all the crowds in the street. It made him feel like there were too many people packed in too little space. And here he was thinking that Camelot markets were crowded.

Fortunately the area the safe house was in was relatively abandoned. That of course would be because the houses there had clearly fallen into disrepair and nobody seemed to care enough to change anything about that. At least it would mean that he would not have any eavesdroppers and that was a welcome thought.

This time Laurie Werner had beaten him there. Last time, Arthur recalled, he had been the first in. Clearly Miss Werner had felt she would be at a disadvantage if she would be the one to arrive last. Arthur could even see the truth in that. For some reason she made him feel like a little boy being late for some important appointment, which was certainly not the case. In fact, he was ten minutes early.

'Mr Parker.' The fake friendliness surrounded her like a cloak. 'I do hope that this is important. As you may be aware, my country has a major diplomatic crisis to deal with.'

Which Arthur by now knew all about. He had spent his ride on the bus familiarising himself with the whole missile defence shield issue, with some helpful notes from Connie stuck in. Others never seemed to forget that he was not from here and used to either make fun of it or treat him like an invalid, but Connie was often the only one who made an effort to help him understand and Arthur was grateful for that. Ros was all good and well when he was in need of an ally and Lucas even remembered to stop and explain his words and actions occasionally, but if the intelligence analyst hadn't taken pity – even if Arthur hated the word more than he could say – on him early on, he'd be lost still in this day and age. Now, he was getting by. He was still feeling like he was playing a game that was too complex for him and he was on his toes all the time, but with some effort he might just manage. And Laurie Werner would take effort, quite a lot of it.

'Which your country has been so kind as to start themselves,' he countered. If she was trying to make him feel for her, then she was sure to be disappointed. This mess was of their own making. They should have thought about it a bit more. Arthur snorted. And here Merlin was saying that Arthur never stopped to think about the consequences of his actions. 'What's more, you're trying to get us to do the dirty work for you. Hardly fair, I would say.' His temper was urging him to give her his best Ros Myers imitation, but that might be bad for the relationship between Thames House and Grosvenor Square. He had caused an uproar already last time with his threats of exposing the American involvement in the station bombing and he had strict orders from the woman he would imitate not to annoy Miss Werner too much. As it was, it was probably best to listen to her this once.

'We have been informed your intelligence on the Russian plans is unsurpassed.' Laurie neatly dodged the first accusation and threw the latter back at him. Arthur corrected his assessment of her: she was not stupid, she was shrewd and far more experienced in this game than he was.

'Surely an agency such as yours won't have no intelligence at all to go on,' Arthur pointed out to her. 'And if my colleagues are going to do your dirty work for you, we'd like to have access to all the information you have in order to work more efficiently.' He'd hung around Ros and her particular brand of diplomacy for too long, he feared. He didn't even sound like himself anymore. The words were all Ros's.

Laurie seemed untouched by this as well. 'Are you telling me you don't have anything to give me?' There was a righteous indignity in her voice that vexed the king of Camelot to no end.

But two could play that game. 'I was under the impression I would be the one getting something first,' he said, leaving the ball in her court, which the woman did not seem to like at all.

'Excuse me,' she said indignantly. 'But I'm afraid you have not yet understood what special relationship means.'

'Well, it would seem that a special relationship means that intelligence is shared on both sides and that help should go both ways as well. How remarkable though that there only ever seems to be a special relationship when it suits your country. When we require some help, say in acquiring a certain file, or getting anything that might be of use to work out what the Russians are currently doing as a result of your actions, I feel obliged to point out, then the special relationship suddenly experiences a few minor blips.' He sincerely hoped this wasn't her country's policy, but it seemed to be Laurie Werner's and Arthur did not like it one bit.

'Are you accusing me of obstructing your investigation?' She got angrier all the time.

'I don't know,' Arthur said, using a trick he'd used before. 'Are you?'

If anything, he'd gotten right under her skin. 'This just gets better and better!' she exclaimed, throwing her hands up in the air in exasperation. 'Now you're what? Telling me we're responsible for the lack of progress you've been making?'

Arthur's first impulse would have been to ask how she knew that there was next to no progress, but he could stop himself at the last possible second. This could just be guessing and this meeting might indicate that they were in need of help, or they wouldn't have asked for it. 'You are proving to be extremely uncooperative,' he said instead. 'And I cannot help but wonder why that is.' He used the tone of voice he used on Merlin when he wanted to be certain that the servant knew he was in deep trouble, topping it off with the threatening smile he saved for occasions such as those. 'And you can hardly blame my team for not dealing with a crisis that was not ours in the making. You should have known what kind of reaction the missile defence shield plans would have on the Russians.'

She side-stepped that as well. 'I thought you were a specialist on the Middle East, Mr Parker, not Russia.'

'Even a child could have told you the foolishness of such plans,' Arthur said dismissively. 'I am gifted with a brain and capable of using it. I would advise your government to start doing the same.' The last remark had quite escaped him, for he certainly had not meant to say it. Ros's warnings were still vividly present in his mind, but controlling his temper had never been a strong point of Arthur's. And he got the uneasy feeling the woman was hiding something. The fact that he could not work out what it was, was not doing his mood any favours at all.

'I'm sorry, are you insulting me?' Her voice got higher the more agitated she became.

_If only you _were_ sorry_. 'No, I think you're not telling me everything you know about the Russian plans. Is there something you don't want me to know?'

He was quite sure that was the case in fact. If Ros's rants about Americans had taught him one thing, it was that they were not very eager to share what they knew. Their reluctance to hand over Bob Hogan's file and their all but refusal to give them anything now just proved it to him.

'Mr Parker, I think you are forgetting yourself.' Laurie seemed to be in a fluster.

And that made Arthur wonder. She was reluctant to share anything, yes, but there seemed to be something else as well. One could only take reluctance that far before it was starting to get suspicious. 'You don't know anything,' he said. It was a guess, but one he thought would be worth the risk of taking. 'You're not telling me anything, because you don't know anything about what the Russians are planning yourself. I think you're desperate for good intelligence now that the Russians are running amok far worse than you had expected over your precious missile defence shield, so desperate that you're even involving MI-5, when it is clear that you don't want us involved in the first place. We're your last hope, aren't we?'

One look at Laurie's face told him that for possibly the first time in his life, he had been absolutely spot on. That might shut Merlin up when he was accusing Arthur of having no intuition again. Today proved that he did have it, and apparently he had quite a lot of it as well. To be honest, he felt rather pleased with himself. He was doing something useful for a change, even if this still meant that another avenue of investigation was shut down, rendering this visit absolutely meaningless. It was a waste of his time.

'Mr Parker…' Miss Werner began. This time he was capable of detecting the bravado in her voice. It was more pronounced now that her mask of indignity had been taken away from her. Arthur considered it a job well done.

But Arthur was done wasting time. 'Next time, Miss Werner, you might want to say that right away, instead of making me waste precious time here trying to acquire reliable intelligence. Why do you not have anything to give me?' If he had been ben informed correctly, then the CIA knew something about everything, even if it wasn't very much. To have no information at all, that was strange.

'Because all our contacts have gone dead.' Laurie sounded a bit exasperated and reluctant at the same time. And Arthur thought he may even understand that. After all, it didn't take an expert to establish that this was unlikely to mean well for anybody.

* * *

**Next time: Merlin practises his magical spying. Until then, please review?**


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

**Merlin**

Merlin felt very uncomfortable about leaving Mordred on the Grid unsupervised while he carried out Ros's order. But it could not be helped. At least Jo seemed to be keeping an eye on the young Druid. She seemed to sense something was off without him telling her. He was grateful for small mercies, although, without Arthur nearby, he didn't think there would be any immediate danger. Mordred was a threat, true enough, but he was mostly a threat to Arthur. Other people were quite safe. And Mordred seemed to be so far out of his depth that Merlin sincerely doubted he would be able to think of murder and treason anyway. It should be safe for him to leave for a while and, as per Ros's instructions, hide in a broom cupboard.

It had not been very eloquently phrased and Merlin did not think he would ever be friends with the woman. Good grief, he didn't think he'd ever come to even like her, but he found that, as time progressed, he started to respect her. She was harsh and about as friendly as a starving lion, but she kept her head even when the whole world fell around her. And then there was that unwavering loyalty of hers to the people she cared about. There weren't very many of those, but Harry and Lucas were persons she very much cared for and just for a brief moment he had seen just how much. _I need to know what is going on in there_. That was what she'd said, but the warlock was convinced that she hadn't meant to emphasise the word need, almost as if she was begging. Ros Myers did not beg. Not until today at the very least. And there was one thing of which he could be absolutely certain: she had not meant for him to see it and to comment on it would be as good a death sentence as handing the executioner his sword himself. And he was not about to do that.

Strangely enough, this made him respect the woman only more actually. It showed that she was human, just like the rest of them. She too could be vulnerable and insecure, she was just better at hiding it than most people.

But her command was easier said than done. If Dolby wasn't to catch wind of what he was up to – and he should not poke his nose in, because spying on this interrogation was without a doubt all kinds of illegal – then he had to get away from the Grid unseen or at least inconspicuous. And given the fact that he would need a bowl with water for his task, that was going to be something of a stretch.

Well, a bowl was found easily enough. Those were kept in the small kitchen just off the Grid, where everyone went to make themselves coffee, because it had been collectively decided that the coffee emerging from the instant coffee machine was only fit to poison people with. The bowl they'd used to spy on Lucas's meeting with Morgana two months ago had come from here. It would serve for his purposes as well, if he could get his hands on it and smuggle it from the Grid.

That was of course the problem. Dolby was watching this place like a hawk and he was hardly going to let Merlin walk off with a bowl that did not seem to serve any purpose at all. And the thing was too big to hide under his shirt, his preferred method of smuggling objects past guards who were not meant to see what he was up to.

'Problems, Merlin?' an amused voice asked.

The warlock turned around to see Connie. The intelligence analyst clearly thought she had caught him dawdling again, and, if he was not quick, she was sure to comment on it. 'Yes,' he replied. He pointed to the bowl in his hand. 'I need to get this off the Grid without Dolby noticing.' He could imagine Ros's reaction when she found out he had blabbed details of his mission around all too well, but the fact was that he needed some help now and it was not as if he had told Connie what exactly he had been told to do. As long as he didn't do that, he'd be fine.

Connie tutted disapprovingly. 'I'm not sure what Ros would think of it, young man,' she commented.

Merlin then understood that she had taken this the wrong way. She thought he was suspecting Lucas of doing something illegal again, but that was not what he had on his mind. 'No, no, it's not that,' he said quickly. 'She asked me to do it, to check up on Harry.' Right, so now he had told her what he was up to, but given Connie's anger at the treatment of her boss, she was hardly going to object now, was she? _I'm just surprised they're taking so long to realise their own stupidity_, she'd said. She didn't believe that Harry was a traitor any more than Merlin did.

She smiled in understanding. 'Leave Dolby to me,' she said, the twinkling in her eyes betraying that she had already some kind of plan. 'Give me two minutes and then get off the Grid as fast as you can.'

Merlin favoured her with his most dazzling smile. 'Thank you, Connie.' He may start to like the woman after all.

'And act normal,' she all but snapped, as if to undo all the liking he'd just found for her. 'No running or looking over your shoulder like a startled criminal running from the police.' She marched back to the Grid before Merlin could have formulated a coherent reply to that. Well, it was hard to like Connie, but she was devoted to her work and for one reason or another she seemed to have started to take a liking to the king of Camelot, treating him like she would a young, inexperienced recruit to the team.

He gave her the two minutes and then followed her instructions. He walked across the Grid, bowl under one arm and a newspaper he'd snatched from an unsuspecting officer's desk in his free hand to cover the bowl from sight. As much as he was trying not to steal a glance at the office, he did it anyway, but Connie had kept word. She was keeping Dolby's attention on a lot of files she had deposited in front of the spy boss and even if he would look up, her body would still block most of the area around the pods from view. The warlock found he liked the woman better with the second.

He didn't have a very intimate knowledge of Thames House yet, but the broom cupboard was not all that hard to find, since it said so on the door. It was cramped, but it would have to do and at least Dolby was unlikely to come looking for him here. And that was what he needed for his mission. But to be sure that no one would come in, he magically locked the door behind him. Better safe than sorry.

The bowl was easily filled with the water he'd put in a water bottle. Merlin was starting to feel a little nervous now, fully aware that this was considered illegal in Dolby's book, but then, he'd rather take his orders from Ros, even though he still did not like her. At least they were on the same side.

The spell was difficult still, but easier to perform every time he cast it. The difficulty now was that he did not exactly know in which interrogation room Harry was being held, which complicated matters somewhat. It took him three interrogation rooms and then minutes, before he finally found one that had people in it.

There were two of them, two men. They were seated on opposite ends of the table. One of them Merlin recognised almost immediately as Harry Pearce, but he was different somehow from the Harry Pearce Merlin had come to know. The Section Head was usually dressed in a suit and tie, crisp and clean. He wasn't dressed in the usual suit now. Instead he was wearing something the warlock didn't have a name for, but it made him look old and vulnerable somehow, not something he particularly liked.

Because it was just wrong. Harry Pearce was the kind of man who was always in control of things and when he wasn't, he pretended that he was all the same. The team needed that, because if they did not have Harry as the steady rock, the whole team might just fall apart. Merlin had already seen it happening. Ros was taking charge, but nerves were frayed and tempers were short. Add to that the fact that so far they had next to no results and the chaos was as good as complete.

The other man in the room Merlin had an immediate dislike of. He bore an expression on his face the warlock so far had only witnessed on the faces of villains. This man was clearly the interrogator and he seemed to be taking a lot of pleasure in that job. Now there was something infinitely wrong. Interrogations may be necessary at times, but that was supposed to be all they ever were: a necessity. It should never be a pleasure.

'Betrayal is a lonely business, isn't it, Harry?' the interrogator said. He sounded totally relaxed and Merlin's stomach clenched in reaction.

'I wouldn't know,' Harry said forcefully. He may look weakened, but he sounded as determined as ever. In fact, Merlin thought he sounded rather angry.

'That secret feeling of power fades so quickly.' The other man went on as if Harry had not spoken at all. Merlin even thought he saw a hint of a smile on his face. 'And the only thing that can bring it back is more betrayal. But the irony is that each betrayal can only lead deeper into the loneliness you were trying to escape from in the first place.' He looked Harry right in the eye now. 'I'm here to help you, to release you from your loneliness.' This time there was a real smile.

It made Merlin want to vomit on the spot. After a few visits to the twenty-first century he thought he understood at least the basics of how this society worked. He understood the world of intelligence to a certain extent and had, thanks to Lucas, a rather good idea of what happened to traitors and captured spies. He knew that the Senior Case Officer had gone through a great deal of physical torture at the hands of the Russians.

But this was unexpected and in a way even more wicked to him. This man, this interrogator, was not doing any physical torture as far as he could see, but he was playing mind games. Pretending to be here to help Harry, while he was only trying to get him to talk, that was low. It was not the right thing to be doing. There was no honour in it, none at all. These were dirty tricks.

_Then accept the fact that someday somewhere someone will kill your king_, Lucas had once told him. _Because that is what happens when you choose to stay on that precious moral high ground of yours_. The spy had spoken in anger, as if Merlin did not understand the world he lived in at all. It was only now that the warlock came to realise that Lucas had been right in that assumption.

There was no moral high ground in that cell. There was just danger; backstabbing and mind tricks. Maybe this interrogator did what he did for the greater good, but if this was how the greater good was served, then Merlin was not sure he wanted to be a part of that. True, he would do everything in his power to save Arthur, but he would _never_ sink _that_ low.

Harry seemed to become irritated as well, but Merlin personally thought it was closer to anxiety and frustration than mere annoyance. 'The only help I need is in apprehending Qualtrough and working out how he framed me.'

Qualtrough. Merlin had never heard the name before, but it was an important one if Harry believed him to be responsible for framing him. Merlin had not entertained the idea of Harry being guilty of treason before and he wouldn't start doing so now, so he had to treat it as important information.

The interrogator had gotten up and walked over to a table, fidgeting with some objects Merlin could not see clearly. 'I did make some inquiries after you mentioned him earlier,' he said. 'I learned that Bernard Qualtrough has been a permanent resident of Bangkok for the past twelve years. Apparently he loves the climate. Either way he hasn't set foot in the UK since 1996.'

Not for the first time Merlin wished he knew more about what was going on. He doubted it would be the last time either. What was going on here? What was that man doing? Who was this Qualtrough?

'No,' Harry said, sounding more panicked now. 'He is in this country now. He is in this country, because he forged that dossier you've been reading.'

Qualtrough, false dossier, probably in the UK. Merlin hated the way his mind worked now, collecting information as if he was a real spy, with no consideration for the people he extracted that information from. Part of him wanted to magically transport into that cell to blow that interrogator to smithereens, but he was not allowed to. Instead he had to sit here, gathering intelligence at someone else's expense. It made him feel sick. If this was what it meant to be a spy, Merlin was not sure he had what it took. He didn't think he ever _wanted_ to have what it took.

'Give me the names of your assets, Harry.' The other man went on as if Harry had not spoken at all, dismissing the information he had been given as worthless. 'And this can all be over very quickly.' To Merlin it sounded like a threat.

This time it was Harry who did the ignoring. 'You'll have to go to his book shop.'

'There is no book shop,' the interrogator said.

'It's in Greenwich,' Harry went on.

'The names, Harry,' the other man insisted. The longer this went on, the more threatening he sounded. Merlin didn't even know exactly why, but he felt that this was about to go all horribly wrong.

'Listen to me!' Harry's voice was building up to a shout. 'I can't give you the names. If I give you the names, it will destroy the network! It will just lead the FSB straight to them!'

Merlin was on the verge of wondering what network and what assets Harry was referring to, when he noticed the needle that man stuck in Harry's neck, making the Section Head gasp at first and then slam on the table over and over again.

And the warlock could not stop himself from gasping too, nor could he stop himself from backing away from the scene in the bowl in disgust. His stomach was turning, and he was close to losing his breakfast on the floor of this broom cupboard. Because he knew what needles were used for, and it was not just for sewing in this day and age. He knew that from experience.

In this time, Jo had explained, sedatives didn't just have to be mixed into food or drinks, but it could also be put directly in one's blood by using needles. All kinds of drugs could easily be admitted to a person. They could be used for good, like they did in hospitals, but there were ways to use them for ill as well.

Merlin himself had been dosed with some kind of pain reliever when he had been forced to visit a hospital three weeks ago after having made a nasty fall from the stairs in Thames House, courtesy of his own legendary clumsiness. The doctors had dosed him with something while they stitched him up. True, he hadn't felt any pain, but he had felt quaint for hours after. And something told him that Harry had not been given an innocent pain reliever at all. This was something far more harmful.

And he just couldn't watch it. He couldn't. Besides, he'd seen far more than he ever even wanted to see. There was information to be brought to Ros, sooner rather than later. This must be worse than any of them had been expecting and yet at the same time he hated himself for being so relieved that they had obtained some information at least.

He stared at the bowl. Yes, there was something he could contribute to this operation and strangely enough it had been Ros who knew how he could. And Lucas was still out there somewhere. The Section Chief was worried for him too, he knew.

The plan had formed before he could even begin to stop himself. He stepped back and looked back into the water. Finding his focus was more difficult now, because he was searching for a specific person and not a place, like he was used to doing. The spell failed the first few times, but then the water showed a small room with not a lot of light and then he saw the man he was looking for, sitting on a chair, waiting…

**Lucas**

Finding the small flat belonging to Maria Korachevsky had not been a difficult feat. He had memorised the route to it from a map while he was still on the plane. He had ditched the map and had navigated his way to the flat on memory. Lucas was sure that he had no FSB company for the duration of the trip. If they were aware of his presence in Moscow, they did not know where to start looking for him and that was a relief.

But he still hadn't met the asset and he was nowhere near London still. Last time he had met his asset before he had been snatched from the street like a common criminal. Maybe the FSB were just biding their time, waiting to see who he would meet and then taking both him and the asset, like they had done last time.

_Get a grip, North_. His mental voice gave him a mental kick in the behind. Wallowing in sentimentality would not do him any favours after all.

He had knocked on the door when he arrived, but was met by silence. That didn't matter though. There were more ways to get into a building apart from being admitted by the person who owned it and as a spy, Lucas knew most of them. It took him half a minute before the lock gave way and he was inside.

The flat was tiny and sparsely lit. Maria Korachevsky seemed to live in a flat with only three rooms: bathroom, kitchen and living-and-bedroom. There was one light on the bedside table that was still burning and that was necessary, because the curtains were all closed. It was also entirely empty and Lucas found he let out a relieved sigh; part of him had been expecting a welcome committee. Now that there was none in sight, he found he could relax.

But only just a little. He was not back in London yet and until then he would be running on adrenaline. But he had a few moments' respite as he waited for Harry's asset to come home. It was the middle of the day, so she was likely to be at work, whatever that work may be. If he was right in his assumption that this woman was a Sugarhorse asset, then it would be safe to say that she worked somewhere high up, close to or in the government.

He waited for what felt like hours, but his watch told him was only a mere fifty minutes. But they were uneasy minutes. Every noise outside was a possible FSB snatch squad to him and he caught himself holding his breath until he was sure they were gone. Spooks paranoia, he knew, but paranoia had saved him a few times already.

So it was hard that when he did hear footsteps outside eventually to remain seated and wait for the lock to be turned. At the same time this reassured him; the FSB didn't trouble themselves with locks and keys. If they wanted entrance, they smashed the door in. The only locks they used, were situated on cell doors, he knew from bitter experience.

The door swung open and revealed a woman of about Harry's age, greying hair and old-fashioned clothes. If anything, she seemed to belong in this room. Maria Korachevsky was not very tall; Lucas didn't think she'd even reach his shoulders if he were standing.

She was intelligent, though. For a moment, when she first saw him, she seemed to freeze into place. Lucas feared she would start calling for help, but then realisation dawned and she closed the door behind her, instead of doing a runner, as everyone in their senses would have done when they found a stranger in their house. Well, anyone who was not a spy would act in such a manner. Spies were of a different mould. They sought out the danger when anyone else would run. If anything, that told this particular spy that he had met the right woman.

He held out the ring with the blue stone to her and she came a little closer to study it. After that she gave a curt nod and moved away again to put on the radio. The voice of mumbling Russian voices filled the room.

It sent a chill down Lucas's spine. '_Are they listening_?' he asked in a whisper. If this woman thought she was under surveillance, then that would justify her actions. It was a classic trick to use a radio or a television to drown out the sounds of a conversation taking place. Suddenly this place felt awfully like a prison cell with no escape routes. His hands felt sweaty.

'_Naturally_,' the woman replied, as if this was old news to her and she could no longer truly care about it. And that was disturbing in and out of itself.

But if he went to pieces now, that would put the whole operation in jeopardy and that he could not stand for. He had a job to do and therefore he reached in his pocket and pulled out a plane ticket. '_He gave me this for you_,' he explained as she examined her way out of Russia. 'Are you ready?'

The woman looked up in what appeared to be exasperation at his question. 'I have been ready for fifteen years,' she pointed out. 'But poor Harry, this must be serious if it has come to this.'

Lucas could not bear to think of just how serious things might be at home. Arthur had told him more than was good for his peace of mind. Harry had been arrested, Dolby had taken over control of Section D and somewhere there was still a traitor on the loose, a traitor who might just make a habit of selling him out to the Russians. Yes, things were serious, but he could not tell Miss Korachevsky just how serious. 'Harry asked me to apologise for not being in touch.' That was the message he had been asked to give and it was a better alternative than telling the truth. 'He said that he hoped you'd understand.'

Maria Korachevsky made a sound that might pass as a snort and then said something in Russian.

'When you love someone, everything is understood,' he translated, wondering briefly what kind of relationship his boss had with this woman, before he decided that it was none of his business to know. Spies had little enough personal lives as it was, so they must be allowed to keep some part of it to themselves.

'Gorky,' she said with a chuckle, approving, he supposed.

But this was no time to quote literature. If the FSB was listening, then there was no time to lose. To be honest, the sooner he was out of here, the better it would be. For all he knew they were already on their way and he was in no mood to be dragged back to one of the hellholes that passed for prisons in this country. 'Do you have what we need?' he asked, a little more harshly than he ought to have perhaps, but he was ill at ease. At least it was a consolation that he was a great deal more polite than Ros Myers, not that one could get any less polite, for that matter.

'I had to plant the package,' she said and Lucas tried to hide the chill that went down his spine as he realised that his mission was far from over. In fact, it might even be that he only just started out on his journey. That was not a prospect one could call tempting. 'It is one thing if I get picked up, but this is too important to lose.'

Of course, Lucas meant to say, but the words got stuck in his throat. Speaking as an intelligence officer, he would agree with her. It was the Ros Myers Conduct Protocol: work first, everything else later. But he had been in a prison and he, as a person, longed to say that she did not know what she was saying. She may have grown up in this country and may take the risk of getting picked up every day, but she did not know what it was truly like. For her sake he hoped she would never have any reason to find out.

And so he stuck to being professional. 'Where will I find it?'

Maria Korachevsky turned around and wrote something down on a piece of paper, which she then handed back to him. 'I hope it contains what you need,' she said. 'Café Bedouin. You will find a friend there.'

Lucas merely nodded as he committed the name to memory. For form's sake he accepted the piece of paper, but he already knew that he would get rid of it as soon as he could, burn it if he could do so inconspicuously. He would have to make it unreadable first and foremost. Paper trails were very dangerous things and the less people that knew about where he would be going, the better it would be. At least the FSB wouldn't learn it from a piece of paper.

'You will have to be on your guard,' she added. 'I intercepted messages to my superior. They're looking for you. They know already that you're not in London.'

_And they made an educated guess where I might be. Or they were told_. It took him all the self-restraint he had not to shiver.

'Next thing they'll do is check the flight manifest,' the woman went on. 'You cannot leave Moscow under the same name.'

The nerves were turning his stomach into knots. Last time he at least had not known that he was being hunted. This time was different. Lucas found that the anticipation made things all the worse. But he was not yet detained, not yet back in prison. He was still free, still capable of trying to outwit them. 'Can you get me another identity?' he demanded.

'I have done that already,' she said, as if it was nothing important at all. Lucas realised that the message to her superior must include his name and a few photographs if she had been able to create a false passport with it. It would also account for her appearing not frightened at all when she found him in her home; she already knew his job, his name and what he looked like.

At the same time though this was an alarming development. His cover was blown wide open and it could not be long before he would have the FSB after him in a full-blown witch-hunt. Whatever it was that was going on, it had the Russians extremely tetchy already. Just how much had they found out about Sugarhorse since he had been interrogated about it?

'My friend will give you the documents you need to get out of Russia,' she said, studying him closely. Lucas had the unpleasant feeling she knew what was going on inside his head.

'Harry said you were formidable,' Lucas said. Well, he'd written it on a piece of paper he'd found in the envelope, more like. Now he saw the truth of that for himself. Formidable this woman was indeed to have taken such steps already. And she had done it for a stranger too. She must have taken great risks to do all of this and he could not deny that he felt touched.

'We were well matched,' Maria said wryly.

Lucas nodded; he could see that. Harry was not all that different. He made for the door.

Her voice called him back. 'Be careful. They will be everywhere.'

He knew that and how he dreaded it. But there was not much choice and he had some skills in counter-surveillance. _You're still fighting, North. Don't you dare give up_. Ros Myers would scold him for this attitude, should she be here to see it. And she would be right to do that too. This was not the way he should behave, not while he was still on an op.

'Maria, it won't take them long to notice what you've done,' he said. He didn't even know why he used her first name, maybe because thanking someone who had risked so much with just a formal acknowledgement felt wrong to him.

'I'll be on a flight to London,' she countered briskly. For a moment there she reminded him closely of a certain Section Chief.

And for Maria's sake, he hoped that she would make it there in time. She was kind and had risked a lot for him. If she made it out, he would search her out to thank her properly, he promised himself. He owed her that, but now was not the time for it.

As he exited the building he made a mental list of what to do. Go to Café Bedouin, get the package and get back to London as soon as he could. Having a goal helped him to keep his head. Harry was still interrogated, he imagined and his information was vital to get him released. He hoped so anyway. _I hope it contains what you need_, Maria had said. She was not certain herself. But it was all he had to go on. Things truly were that desperate. But there was also still hope, he had to remind himself.

He was close to the street when his newfound hope went right down the drain again. Two men, both clad in dark clothes, made a run for the courtyard he was currently in. One of them seemed to be reaching for a gun. They might as well have had a neon sign with 'FSB' above their heads.

His first impulse was to throw himself against the column that was only half a meter away from him, hiding behind it, but he suppressed it. That would draw the attention to him if it was seen. Instead he walked around it, which hided him mostly from sight as the two men ran past on the other side. They did not seem to see him and Lucas exhaled in relief as they appeared out of sight. That had been a very close call.

But he also knew that right now a kind elderly woman was in danger of experiencing Russian hell for herself. If he had any compassion he would go back to help. He may not have a weapon, but he was an experienced fighter if need be.

But he could almost hear Ros's scolding if he acted like that, risking the operation for a woman who had just outlived her usefulness. It was cold and unfeeling, but that was the way she worked and it had to be the way he worked as well. There was too much on the line to risk everything for the sake of one person, no matter how kind she had been.

And so with heavy heart he turned to the street and Café Bedouin. If he could not help her, he could at least make sure that her sacrifice had not been for nothing.

* * *

**Next time: Arthur gives Dolby a piece of his mind. And don't worry, I've not forgotten about Mordred. He just needs a little time.**

**Please review?**


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

**Ros**

_Borkhovin was a Sugarhorse asset_. It was only when the silence around her became so uncomfortable that Ros realised that she had spoken out loud. That had not been her intention and anyone who knew her could tell that if anyone was in control of their tongue, it would be Ros Myers. Today, shock had made her more talkative than she liked by far.

And one of the reasons for that dislike was Richard Dolby, whose face was taking on most of the characteristics of an overripe tomato. 'How do you know about Sugarhorse?' he shouted. Ros resisted the urge to dive out of the way of the saliva that she expected to accompany his indignant shouting.

'Shall we take this to your office, sir?' she asked pleasantly. Heaven only knew what she had put at risk by blabbing such a piece of information in front of a potential traitor. Now she was sure that they knew that she knew and that was a development she could have done without. The least she could do now was to contain the damage.

That seemed to make him realise that they were not alone and that there was in fact a lot of unauthorised personnel watching the exchange. And she had the good fortune of his phone starting to ring just in that moment. Normally he might have verbally torn her to shreds – if she'd let him – but now he settled for a glare that was supposed to pass as scaring. Ros was not impressed; she had been on the receiving end of Harry's often enough. 'My office, five minutes!' he snapped at her as he turned and answered his phone.

Ros bristled at the possessive pronoun, but kept her silence. She was in trouble enough as it was. _Just wait until Harry's proven innocent and back in that office. Then we'll see who's laughing last, you bloody bastard_. She was not afraid to face Dolby, not in the very least. She'd seen too much to be frightened by one of the officer class, who sat in a chair all day letting the traitor pull so much wool over his eyes that he didn't know right from wrong anymore, although Ros would have to admit that confusing Dolby might not have been such a feat, considering how little brains there seemed to be in his head.

It would however be nice to have a knight in shining armour with her. As if the king of Camelot had read her mind, he chose that moment to emerge from the pods, with a face that looked rather disgruntled. This did nothing whatsoever to trigger any alarm bells though; Laurie Werner had that effect on everyone, not just the legendary King Arthur.

'Nothing,' he reported as he joined her. If he felt the curiosity radiating off the other team members, he did not show it. 'All their assets have gone quiet.' It was only then that he seemed to register that something on the Grid was not as it was supposed to be. 'What happened?'

Ros took a moment to glare at the others. 'What is this, a bloody theatre show?' she snapped. 'We have a crisis to deal with!'

There was some muttering, some of which might have been a bit ashamed, but the Section Chief could not care. She had other and better things to occupy her mind. From now on she would need to be more careful. The traitor was probably on the Grid itself and would by now be aware that she knew about Sugarhorse. That meant that there were very little people she could trust until the traitor had been revealed. Jo, Ben, Arthur and Merlin. Everyone else, and that still included Richard Dolby, could be a threat.

'You, with me,' she told Arthur. He may be hopeless at spying, but he was a loyal sort of man, the kind to stick with his friends even when things got dangerous. He'd risk his life for them if need be. And he had the additional bonus of not being able to stand Dolby. She could face that man on her own perfectly, but to have Arthur there might swing the odds in her favour beyond the shadow of a doubt. Friends Arthur and she would never be, but maybe they could try to be colleagues. She found she was in need of those.

'What happened?' Arthur demanded when the others had left.

'Borkhovin was a Sugarhorse asset,' she reported. 'And Dolby knows I know about it. I've been called to the carpet to answer for that crime.'

Arthur needed all of three seconds to connect the dots and then fury marred his face. 'I'm coming with you.' Arthur really was the knight in shining armour. Ros suspected that it was the way he was brought up, but she was grateful for it. And she wasn't about to pass up an opportunity to get one over Dolby, who might still be a traitor. One way or another, she'd have to find out who it was, preferably without alerting any of the people she still had under suspicion. Jo and Ben were needed too much on the Grid to have them dig into the traitor issue and Malcolm and Connie were suspects until further notice. With both Harry and Lucas gone, that made her list of opportunities rather short. In fact, it left only Arthur and Merlin. She had her doubts about those, wasn't even sure if their spying skills were up to scratch, but she may not have much of a choice. She'd have to risk it.

'Don't be surprised at anything I say,' she told Arthur as they walked over to the office. 'Just play along.' He should be able to do that, she hoped.

She didn't bother to knock before she ushered Arthur into Harry's office and followed suit herself, closing the door firmly behind her. Dolby had been on the phone, but clearly Ros's arrival took precedence over whatever it was that had needed his urgent attention before. He was already on the verge of saying something – more like doing an attempt to bite her head off, Ros observed – when he caught sight of the king of Camelot.

'What is _he_ doing here?' he demanded.

Ros conjured up her sweetest smile. Her subordinates knew they were in trouble whenever that was directed at them. 'Harry briefed us about Sugarhorse,' she answered. It was not entirely true, since she was the one to brief Arthur, but that was none of Dolby's concern. The less he knew, the better it would be. 'He was trying to save the operation.' And a lot of good it had done, what with Borkhovin being as dead as the proverbial doornail.

Dolby's glare should have made her drop dead on the floor. 'By telling unauthorised personnel about its existence?'

Ros was trying to bite back a scathing remark about how she was at least competent, which was more than she could say about the man behind Harry's desk. 'Whoever leaked that image is sending us a message that they're onto our network,' Ros pointed out, quite unnecessarily in her opinion, but then Dolby was the type that needed things spelled out for him. 'If Harry was a mole, why would he expose himself like that?' Even a child could have thought of this, which spoke for Dolby's lack of intelligence. This was of course old news.

'Because the damage is already done. He's already leaked the names.' Dolby was speaking slowly, as if he was talking to a particular stupid child. 'When Hugo died, Harry and I split his assets. We never knew each other's, but we both knew Hugo's. Now an asset Harry took on has been murdered, just when we might have needed him.'

_That doesn't mean Harry is responsible_, Ros meant to say. Arthur beat her to it. 'And that makes Harry your only suspect?' he demanded. 'You're saying you knew about Borkhovin as well.' There was a barely concealed accusation in the king's words and Dolby wasn't thick enough to miss it. The angry glare now settled on the king of Camelot, who seemed wholly unimpressed.

Ros stepped in before things could get ugly. She appreciated Arthur's input, but she'd have hoped that he understood the need to watch his tongue. After all, she had taken him with her more to cower Dolby into cooperating than that she had taken him to make an active contribution to the meeting. It was not his job to make matters worse. 'Someone could have gotten to the names through Hugo Prince,' she pointed out, stepping on Arthur's toes to make him get the message that he should proceed with caution should he want to start out on his righteous crusade to make Dolby see sense.

Dolby sputtered out an explanation of how he had known Hugo as well as he had known his own family. Ros idly wondered how anyone in this line of work could know their family at all with the hours they were working in this job – provided they were still in touch with their families – but refrained from commenting until Dolby began to babble on about the proof he had of Harry's guilt, pushing a file over the desk at her. 'Hugo wasn't a traitor,' he stated as if it was a fact. 'If you care to look at it, I have proof of who was.' The smug expression on his face made Ros want to spit in his face.

_I most definitely don't care to_. The Section Chief was tempted to shred it, burn it or feed it to Harry's dog, who at least had the good sense to treat that pathetic excuse for a file as it should be treated, but nothing in the world would persuade her to read the sorry thing. 'Anyone can fake a dossier,' she said. It took all her efforts not to explode in true Arthurian fashion.

Her words seemed to miss their target. 'Lucas North never arrived,' Dollophead Dolby observed. 'Caught up in traffic?'

Ros knew full well what the man behind that desk was implying and she hated him for it. _Flight to hell_, Lucas had written. She knew that was what it was to him. She might have entertained doubts about him when he had just returned, but those doubts had long since gone. Lucas was no traitor, yet people always seemed to suspect him first when there was something wrong. It grated on Ros's every nerve and, if Arthur's expression was any indication, she was not alone in that. 'Who knows?' she said, unable to bite back a scathing comment. 'London traffic can be quite a bother.'

'If you know where he is, you have to tell me,' Dolby said. His eyes were narrowed in suspicion.

_So that you can sell him out to the FSB? I don't think so, no_. Maybe she _was_ going paranoid. Suddenly she was seeing traitors everywhere. Good grief, keep this up and she would be as bad as Connie, who smelled Russians everywhere. But given the current situation, Ros had to admit that the intelligence analyst may have a point after all. 'Wherever he is, I know he's not a double agent.' Colleagues are okay. At least that colleague was okay, even if she could no longer be sure about the rest of them. Malcolm had tried to dissuade her from looking into Chandra Paturi's death, Connie had offered to deal with the matter of his post-mortem in spite of Ros having given the job to Jo and now Richard Dolby was trying to get her to reveal Lucas's location. What if there wasn't just one traitor? What if there were two or, heaven forbid, three?

Dolby was trying to out-glare her, and failing. 'The first Sugarhorse asset has been murdered,' he reminded her. 'Soon others will be too.'

'Then I suggest you get off that chair and start doing something.' Ros should not have been surprised that Arthur lost his patience and exploded before she did. If she was really honest, then she had to admit that she was surprised it had actually taken him this long to lose his patience with their temporary – she at least hoped so – boss. Of course it was only when he started to take it out on Lucas that he lost it. Looking at it that way, it was hardly surprising that he acted the way he did. He considered Lucas a friend and Arthur Pendragon was nothing if not loyal to his friends.

Dolby however did a good job of ignoring Arthur. It could also be that he was too busy ranting that he had not heard Arthur in the first place, which was a distinct possibility. 'By the time the US and Russia sit down to thrash this out, our intelligence on Russia will be a joke, unless you can force Harry into giving up his names, before they are killed.'

Now her blood reached boiling point as well. 'You want me to use Harry's team to prove that he is a traitor?' She had to keep her arms folded across her chest to stop herself from making good on the urge to drag Dolby over the desk and march him off the premises by force. Heaven knew she was tempted to. What the hell did Dolby think he was doing? Was he completely insane? She had told him that this team was utterly loyal to Harry Pearce and now he expected that they were going to cooperate?

Arthur's thoughts ran along another line. He was angry too, that much was obvious, but clearly for other reasons too. 'Well, then perhaps you can start debriefing your own assets or are they all so useless that they have nothing to useful to say? Can't say I'm that surprised, seeing what a dollophead the man who recruited them is.' Arthur was glaring daggers at Dolby and Ros could not even blame him for it.

Under any other circumstance she might have laughed at the face that man was pulling at hearing Arthur's words. Dollophead was not a common insult – as far as she was aware, it was not even a word at all – but the recipient got the gist of it. Ros was more or less surprised there was no steam coming out of his ears. 'It is not your place to question my orders!' he bristled.

'I'm questioning your actions,' Arthur countered. He may be a bit more capable to handle himself in the twenty-first century than he had been the first time he visited. He may even be a bit more skilled in spying than he had been and he certainly had become quite a bit more manipulating, but there were things that never changed. His unwavering loyalty to those he considered friends was one thing, his inability to keep his big mouth shut when he needed to was quite another, a trait Ros now cursed. She was not the most tactful person around, but even she knew better than to court danger in such a way. Arthur would do well to remember that he was not in Camelot, where he could throw people in the dungeons whenever they acted in a way that displeased him. But Arthur was like a bull who'd seen a red flag once he got warmed up and there was no stopping him now. 'And your sanity. You've worked with Harry for years. You should know better than to think that he was a traitor. I've only worked with him for a couple of months and even I can see that.' He huffed indignantly. 'And then to think that Merlin says I am an idiot.'

Ros knew they would both regret this later, but at the moment she enjoyed the triumphant feeling of seeing Richard Dolby stare at the Once and Future King with a look of utter bewilderment on his face. And goodness knew the bloody man deserved it after his venomous words from just now.

She took advantage of his temporary speechlessness to make her escape. 'If that's all, sir, we have a crisis to deal with.' She delivered the line with her most professional smile, the one that never quite reached her eyes. 'If you'll excuse us?'

She made for the door without waiting for an answer. Dolby was unlikely to remain flabbergasted for long and she wouldn't want to be anywhere near him when he did find his tongue again. And it would seem that there was a little bit of luck left to her in the world, because the moment she stepped foot on the Grid, the pods whooshed and the Home Secretary entered, effectively ensuring that Dolby's attention would be elsewhere for the next half hour. _Saved by the politician_, she thought wryly. _Wonders never cease._

**Merlin**

Merlin practically ran through the corridors of Thames House back to the Grid. He would have bumped into quite a fair number of people were it not for his experience in weaving his way through crowds born of running after or for Arthur through the castle of Camelot. He ducked out of the way of a man in suit and tie and dived past a woman who clutched a sheaf of papers to her chest, flashing her a smile by way of an apology for startling her with his racing past her.

His heart wasn't in those smiles though. He had seen too much for that today. Seeing what was being done to Harry in this very building had made him feel sick to his stomach already, but it were the events in Moscow that had truly shocked him to the core. Initially he had mostly been relieved that Lucas was alive and well, even though the woman he had met had said something about people looking for the spy, which was an alarming development in and out of itself.

But that had not been what had left him feeling cold inside, with a desperate urge to vomit on the spot. It was what had happened after Lucas's departure that had made him feel like this. The woman – Lucas had called her Maria – had been packing a suitcase when the door to her flat had been forcefully thrown open and two men had come in, with guns. Maria's movements had stilled and she took a deep breath, almost as if she knew what was coming. The next moment she fell on the bed, dead, shot by the two men who had broken into the sparsely lit flat. The worst of it was that the murderers exited again with hardly a look at their victim and when they were back on the street, they started to talk in a tone of voice that suggested that their actions meant nothing much to them.

That was when he had vomited, in the bowl with water. It had disrupted the vision, but Merlin had seen more than enough anyway. So he had magically vanished the water and his own sick and left the broom cupboard he'd hidden in to search for Ros Myers and tell her what he had seen. At least he was in no danger of forgetting any of it in the foreseeable future. The visions had been burned on his mind's eye and he was sure they would haunt his nightmares for months to come.

This world, this age, even for all its wonders, seemed a crueller age than where he came from. Well, he would not be as naïve as to say that Camelot was peaceful all the time, but it was the people's attitude that had him in a state of shock for half the time. Heaven knew that Merlin had seen more than his fair share of humanity's cruelty, but mostly he did not bear witness to murders such as these.

He passed the pods, emerging just after the Home Secretary and some of his followers. He had only met Nicholas Blake in person once, during Operation Camelot, but he had seen him a couple of times on a television screen as well, enough to recognise him when he encountered him. But the Home Secretary didn't usually come on the Grid. Harry and Ros went to see him in Whitehall, never the other way around. That did not bode well, Merlin knew.

But the Home Secretary was not truly his problem now. He needed to find Ros and report to her what he knew. A quick glance around the room taught him that she was nowhere to be seen. Connie was seated at her own desk, with Mordred on the chair next to her. It looked like she had taken the Druid under her wing the way she had done Arthur when they had first come here. Malcolm, Jo and Ben were huddling together near Jo's desk, but there was no sign of either Ros or Arthur.

As if called, the two of them exited Harry's office that moment. Arthur looked like he had been faced with the prospect of having to make nice with King Alined and Ros gave every impression of being seriously displeased as well. Merlin could not truly blame them for acting in such a manner, considering who it was they had just been meeting in that office.

Ros saw him first and made a beeline for him. 'Found anything?' she demanded briskly. Only her eyes betrayed that she might be out of sorts, the rest of her was as composed as ever.

He gave a curt nod. 'Yes.' He glanced at the Home Secretary, not sure if this was something that could be discussed in public. Given Ros's order for secrecy, he rather doubted it.

But his report might have to wait, because Mr Blake had announced that he wanted to see Richard Dolby, who came walking over to them with a too bright smile and an attitude that reminded the warlock of a puppy eager to play go and fetch with its master.

'I just had a call from MI-6,' the Home Secretary announced. 'A second Russian official has been found dead. Her name was Maria Korachevsky, she was a senior civil servant in Russia's nuclear program.'

Nicholas Blake kept on talking, but Merlin didn't hear him. It was as if someone had stuffed his ears and he only heard sounds coming through from afar. But they did not make any sense, not anymore. Because this name meant something to him. Well, the first name did. Maria. The woman Lucas had been talking to had been called Maria and she had been working for MI-5. She had been killed shortly after Lucas had left. Coincidence? He didn't think so. Connie had once told him that coincidence did not exist in this line of work and she had been right. There had to be more to this.

He felt himself go all cold inside. What was really going on here? What was he missing? What were Arthur and Ros keeping from him? So far it seemed as if they were the only two who were fully in the know about what happened here and it frustrated Merlin to no end, as much as it frightened him too. Something big was going down, he felt, and it was all connected to Harry being arrested as a traitor and the Americans' plan to build a missile defence shield in Poland. He was no fool, no matter what Ros and Arthur thought.

He had seen the reactions of king and Section Chief too and neither boded well. Alarm flashed across Arthur's face and he exchanged a glance with Ros, who seemed to have gone rigid. She could have turned into a stone statue for all Merlin knew.

But she was the Section Chief for a reason. 'Sir, if you want us to work out what is going on and do something about it, I believe the team would be more effective if they were granted full authorisation to the relevant information.' The only sign that she was not her usual snappy self was the far more subdued tone of voice. Ros Myers didn't do shocked, but she sure came close to it now, which worried the warlock only more. Something was terribly wrong, but at least she explained why he had not been told what was really going on; it simply was above his clearance level. There was no ulterior motive and neither was he being deliberately shut out. _But then why has Arthur been told?_

Richard Dolby looked far too pleased with himself when he answered. 'No,' he said immediately and dismissively. 'You're all tainted by your association with Harry Pearce.' He even sounded like he was enjoying this.

Arthur looked like he wanted to challenge the man to single combat, a fight to the death, but Ros's death glare prevented him from making good on that intention. Now there was a novel thing to be seen. Arthur didn't usually listen to anyone who told him he could not tear into a person who had offended him. The Home Secretary was bleating on about how they had to work out what the Russians were up to anyway, in spite of the team not having access to all of the information they needed. It seemed like an impossible thing to be doing.

Richard Dolby took Nicholas Blake into his office, probably for the discussion of more things Section D wasn't to know. Arthur's foul look should have burned holes in both their backs, but they reached the office alive and in good health. Merlin was almost surprised.

Ros smiled wryly as the door closed behind the two men. 'Okay,' she said. 'If we are going to continue, there are things you deserve to know. Meeting room, five minutes. Arthur, Merlin, my desk, now.'

The shock was still having Merlin in its clutches, but he managed a smile when he realised that Ros had no intention of obeying Dolby's commands. It was a rule-breaking streak he recognised in himself. And it was a pure Ros Myers attitude: she would do whatever was needed to conclude the operation in a satisfactory manner, orders of her superiors notwithstanding.

So he followed her to her desk and took the chair she commanded him to take. 'What did you learn?' she questioned without further ado.

He reported what he had seen in detail, even if it made his stomach almost turn itself upside down.

'The interrogator, did he have a name?' Ros asked. A deep frown had crept onto her forehead as she listened, which was still better than the I'm-going-to-kill-the-one-responsible-for-this-loo k that graced Arthur's face.

Merlin shook his head. 'No, not that I know of. Harry did speak of someone named Qualtrough though, Bernard Qualtrough.' He recalled the name so well because it had sounded queer to him. 'Harry said that he was the one who had framed him, the one who had faked a dossier of some kind. He's got a bookshop in Greenwich,' he added. 'But the interrogator said that Qualtrough has been living in Bangkok – wherever that may be – for twelve years.'

Ros cursed, even if Arthur looked confused. The name meant obviously more to her than it did to king and warlock. She must have heard it before.

'You know him?' Merlin asked.

'I know of him,' Ros corrected icily, a tone that suggested she wasn't going to elaborate. 'What else?'

'Just that Qualtrough is probably in the UK now,' Merlin reported. 'Ros, I think they drugged Harry. There was a needle and…'

'I get it.' The Section Chief was snappy, but Merlin doubted it as directed at him personally. 'Meeting room, now.' If there was any indication that she was ill at ease, this was it. Ros Myers would never be the school example of a people's person, but the tension had burned away what little social skills remained to her.

'Wait!' Merlin exclaimed, possibly a little too loud, since several Internal Security officers still hanging around looked up in mild alarm. At least it did the job of stopping Ros in her tracks, but he lowered his voice all the same. 'I know you didn't ask me to look out for Lucas, but I did.'

He half expected wary looks and accusations of not trusting the Senior Case Officer still, but Ros's eyes only briefly betrayed some relief before the usual mask went back on again and she was just the forbidding Section Chief again. 'What did you bloody well see?' she prompted when he didn't speak immediately.

'He was meeting a woman called Maria,' Merlin replied. 'She told him there was information hidden in some café somewhere, that she'd had to plant it.' He thought hard. 'Her superiors knew that Lucas was not in London and said that "they" were already looking for him. She got him another identity with the package in that café.' He swallowed hard to get a grip on himself as he related what had happened next. 'Ros, after he'd left, two men came in and shot her. I'm not sure, but I think she's the same as the woman the Home Secretary said has been found dead, Maria Korachevsky. I saw them do it!'

That he certainly did and he passionately wished he hadn't seen it. That poor woman. She had not deserved her fate. Merlin thought her brave and selfless, because of all the things she had done for Lucas, even though he must have been a stranger to her. It was the same kindness that Gwen possessed, a little ray of goodness in an otherwise harsh world. To kill a person who was like that, that was more than just a crime. It was an abomination.

Ros gave a curt nod to signal that she had heard him.

'Do you think she was a Sugarhorse asset too?' Arthur asked.

Merlin did not know yet what Sugarhorse was or what Arthur meant by it, but he had a feeling this was part of the reason why his friend and his temporary boss were so on edge, something that was above his clearance level. Something bigger was going down and he was torn between keeping his patience for a little longer or just asking Ros what the matter was out right.

As it was, she made the decision for him. 'She was,' she said. 'Come.' She marched off to the meeting room and Merlin had no choice but to follow, hoping that he would at least get some answers now.

* * *

**Next time: Lucas makes a discovery and Merlin receives a phone call. Please review?**


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

**Ros**

Ros was not at all at ease with telling her colleagues about Sugarhorse. With a traitor on the Grid itself that had to be one of the most dangerous things she had ever done, especially since Dolby had explicitly forbidden her from briefing the rest of the team. One of the persons in this room could be the traitor, she was only too well aware of that possibility.

She looked at Connie first, composed as always. There was nothing that seemed to be able to throw the intelligence analyst off balance. No matter how bad the crisis, she always kept her head. It was something Ros modelled her own conduct on, because it worked. She admired the other woman for her sometimes nonchalant ways of dealing with bad situations. But it could work both ways. Connie could be hiding something behind that mask of calm and she would never know for sure by just watching her.

Malcolm looked a bit more stressed. He usually was calmness incarnate, but today he was badly shaken, although most of it seemed due to the invasion of Internal Security and Harry's arrest. Ros could hardly fault him for that, not with her own peace of mind being currently non-existent, but there could still be another reason why he was upset. And while Ros did not in all honesty want to contemplate that possibility, she knew she had to.

But anyway, her cover was already blown the moment she had so stupidly let it slip that she was aware of Sugarhorse. Most of the team members would not have understood what she meant, but one of them would have. By now she had let go of the ridiculous assumption that either Harry or Lucas was the mole. Lucas was ruled out in that role after what Merlin had seen and Harry? Ros didn't think she had ever believed treason of him. It was, to say it in Connie's words, just too absurd. But this only left Connie, Malcolm and Dolby. _So which one is it?_

That was the question and one she would have to work out sooner rather than later, preferably before that horrible man downstairs did God only knows what to her real boss. Ros wished she could scream and pound the walls like an angry child, but the fate of the operation was in her hands, she knew. If she went to pieces, the operation and, consequently, Harry and Lucas were doomed. And Ros Myers was nothing if not a perfectionist. So she kept a calm façade as she relayed the fact that both Borkhovin and Korachevsky had been part of the sleeper network Sugarhorse. 'It was designed to keep Russian nuclear capability under NATO control,' she explained. 'That network is now being destroyed just as Russia plans to turn the missile defence issue into a global crisis.' _Bloody brilliant of them too_. 'So, unless we can find out who betrayed the Sugarhorse names and stop them before anyone else dies, we stand to lose any edge we ever had over Russia and any protection against any future attack.' _So, no pressure at all._

As dangerous as it was to inform their traitor that she was onto them, it was also a relief to share the burden. There were still people she could trust unconditionally and she would use those. Arthur and Merlin were not such burdens as they had once been. Arthur brought his loyalty and sometimes remarkable intellect – should he feel in the mood to bloody well use it – to the table and Merlin had shown initiative and independent thinking as well. Although Ros was never going to admit it, she was grateful that the warlock had taken the time to make sure Lucas was still all right. It did not stop her from worrying, but it helped some.

She found herself looked at by a lot of serious faces. There was shock, but confusion as well and it was Jo who voiced the last sentiment. 'Why don't you just give us a list of names so we can pull them out and debrief them?'

'The network was designed to be unbreakable. Only certain names are known to certain individuals.' Harry Pearce, Hugo Prince and Richard Dolby. With Hugo Prince being dead, that only left two people, who should have been the only people to know the names. But there were a lot of ways to ferret out things one wasn't supposed to know and all of them were spies. Anyone could have found out the names if only they had enough time and determination to do it. 'But no one has the full list,' she added. They certainly didn't.

Ben frowned. 'But Hugo Prince is a link?' He could hardly conclude otherwise, with Hugo Prince signing out Borkhovin's file so much.

Ros nodded. 'Yeah.' One of the three.

Connie's face was instantly indignant. 'Hugo and I were lovers,' she said, glaring at Ros. 'I know he wasn't a traitor.'

_I beg your pardon?_ That was something Ros had not been aware of. It certainly had not been in the personnel files she had been digging through half of the morning. It certainly did add food to the thought that Connie was the traitor, if she had been so close to Hugo Prince. It were his assets that were being murdered now, after all. It just disagreed with Connie's obvious and much voiced dislike of Russia and the KGB.

Ben was the one to reassure Connie that this was not what he had intended. He was the one to drop the next bomb on them though. He had done a little digging of his own and had thus found out that the last time Mr Prince had taken the file on Borkhovin was on September twenty-third 2003. The only problem with that was that Hugo Prince had died on September twenty-second. Ben didn't need to state the obvious, that this person who was not Hugo Prince could be the traitor they were looking for.

Ros had never even liked the junior officer – too much history there – but right now, if she were a more spontaneous and affectionate woman, she could have hugged him for providing her with an avenue to explore. She'd had more than enough of chasing shadows and suspicions for which there did not seem to be any ground. This, however, was something they could actually check out and that was a very welcome change.

She ordered him to get down to the archive and find the authorisation slip used to access the file then, after which he was to take it to Malcolm, so that he could unleash his machinery on it. Malcolm was still on the list for being a traitor, but no one else knew how to manage that machinery in the way Malcolm did. Like it or not, they needed him and Ros had every intention of keeping a close eye on him.

'Needle in a haystack,' Connie commented with a pitying look at the junior officer. 'I'll come with you.'

'No.' For the second time that day Ros found herself slapping down an offer of help from the intelligence analyst. If Connie was trying to not look like a traitor, then she was doing a very poor job of it. 'That's not your job,' she pointed out sharply. 'I'll need you up here. There'll be an avalanche of chatter once that second death is announced. I'll need you listening in, find out who the Russians might hit next.' There, now she had at least made it sound like a normal order, not as if she was suspecting her of doing anything but her job. And that was a good thing, because Ros was not even sure Connie should be suspected of anything. So far she had not really done anything she wouldn't normally do. It was merely Ros's attitude that had so drastically changed. Spooks paranoia. Sooner or later they'd all succumb to it, like Connie, who saw Russians lurking behind every corner. Her behaviour could mean nothing. It probably meant nothing. But Ros was rather safe than sorry.

It spoke for the intelligence analyst that she didn't protest. She merely nodded and stalked off back to the Grid to do what she had been told to do. Ben got up as well and Merlin followed suit. 'I'll go,' he offered. 'I can try if my magic is any help.'

Merlin was full of surprises today, Ros observed wryly. Earlier he had given every impression of not being very eager to put effort into this operation. He had even gone as far as to start a conversation with Mordred – where was that lad? – about only God knows what. He had been his usual annoying self, until she had sent him to do some magical spying. Apparently he had been so shocked by what he'd seen, that he finally realised what was really at stake here. Well, wonders never ceased.

She nodded her approval and waited until the warlock had left the room and had closed the door behind him. Then she turned to Jo. 'I want you to pull up everything related to Bernard Qualtrough and the codename Pilgrim.' She had heard Lucas about this when they were trying to piece together what little he knew about Sugarhorse and anything relating to it. It was something he recalled from his interrogation and Bernard Qualtrough had come up then as well, although they had not been able to work out what he had done then, if he even had done anything. But it was hardly a coincidence that Merlin had overheard Harry naming him as the one who'd forged the dossier.

Still, it wasn't their traitor. He may be the traitor's contact, but the mole itself was hidden somewhere in their own little fruit bowl. But there was more than one way to catch a traitor and Ros was determined to utilise every option she had. The more ways she tried, the bigger the chance was that one of them was successful.

Jo nodded and Ros turned to Arthur. 'You and I are going through a list of every Russian diplomat who has ever made contact with MI-5. If no one can give us the Sugarhorse names, we'll bloody well have to work it out ourselves.' Now there was a needle in a haystack job, but it needed to be done.

Arthur gave a curt nod as well, but then, he didn't know just how hopeless things were yet. The Section Chief found that she almost envied him his ignorance. If she hadn't known what a long shot this was, then she might be feeling a bit more optimistic too. As it was, she was rather tending towards very realistic pessimism.

And she just felt so bloody alone. _I can't do this on my own_. The world was collapsing around her and the two very people she would normally have used to lean on, draw strength from in crises like this one, were either interrogated or on the run from the FSB on the other side of Europe. But if she showed any of her unease, her world would not be the only thing to collapse. _So, get back to work, Myers. Wallowing is not going to do you any good._

Jo looked doubtful. 'You realise that all this could just prove that Harry is the mole?'

Ros had to suppress the strong urge she felt to bang the junior officer's head against the table top for having the guts to even consider the possibility that Harry was a double agent. The very thought was ridiculous. But maybe her anger was only so near the surface because deep down she realised that Jo's attitude was, at least at the moment, more professional than Ros's. And that was a thought she couldn't stand. She was used to being the one who didn't let get emotions in the way of an operation.

But she did. Where her team, her colleagues, were considered, she found she was no longer able to distance herself from her work. And Harry had become close to being a father figure to her now that her own father was serving his sentence for trying to overthrow the government in jail. _Families mess with your head._ She had known the truth of that when she had first said that to Lucas and the truth of it became now apparent once again.

She kept her tone of voice calm as she replied. 'Yeah,' she said, still not willing to believe it though, not of Harry Pearce. 'But it's also our only chance to prove that he isn't.'

_So, focus on that_, she ordered herself. _And get going._ Worried for Harry and Lucas or not, there was still a major diplomatic crisis going down and the single most important operation of the last few decades was being betrayed to the Russians as they were speaking. Her first priority had to be to salvage whatever was left of Sugarhorse and find out what the Russians were planning to do about the missile defence shield issue. Sugarhorse or not, they were still very annoyed with the United Stated at the moment – Ros could hardly blame them for feeling that way; she wasn't the Americans' biggest fan either – and it was likely that reprisals of some kind were imminent. With the British thrown into the mix, they may even face reprisals on British soil. The Russians knew about Sugarhorse and were unlikely to be pleased with it.

Jo nodded and left, leaving only Arthur and Ros in the room. The Section Chief did not exactly look forward towards working with the king of Camelot, but no one would be able to accuse him of not being devoted to the job. He cared and sometimes he even gave the impression of knowing what he was doing. He wanted to help.

'You don't believe that Harry is a traitor,' Arthur stated, fixing her with a stare that was almost challenging her to contradict him, after which he might challenge her to single combat to the death or something like that. Arthur Pendragon was too trusting for his own good. It could have been the death of him when he initially refused to believe that his uncle Agravaine was a traitor. He had refused to believe it until he had then solid proof that Agravaine was indeed working with Morgana, plotting his downfall.

There was of course another side to this. he also had an unwavering faith in the people he considered friends and would rather die than let any harm come to them. He had not left a stone unturned when Lucas had been taken by Morgana and he had jumped to his defence when Dolby had started accusing Lucas as well. Harry must have ended up on the list of Arthur's friends somehow. It made her wonder where she stood.

'I should bloody well hope not,' she said dismissively.

Colleagues are okay, Lucas and she had once decided, and sometimes friends could be as well. They also annoyed you time and again. Arthur annoyed her to no end. Might he even be considered a friend sometime? With both Harry and Lucas gone, she found herself in need of them – even if she would rather die than admit to that out loud – especially now that mere colleagues could no longer be truly relied upon.

'Good,' Arthur said. 'Well, shall we?'

'You are aware I am actually the Section Chief here?' she asked sardonically.

Arthur shrugged. 'And I am the king of Camelot, so stop lazing around like Merlin on the morning after a visit to the tavern and let's get to work.' He marched out of the meeting room before she had a chance to reply.

Oh yes, Arthur Pendragon annoyed her to no end.

**Lucas**

The kitchen wasn't difficult to find. The woman who had introduced herself as Katerina, one of the poor souls doomed to spend their days in this bar, had been very specific with her instructions. As he descended the stairs that would lead him to the kitchen, constantly scanning the room for any sign of FSB presence, he wondered who she was and why she did what she was doing. She didn't strike him like the kind of person who was too stupid to do better work. She seemed intelligent.

For a spook it was a very annoying thing to know that there were things he would never know and this was just one of those things he may never find out. He didn't even think he'd ever see the woman again. The FSB might find out who she was and what she'd done and then she might die the same way Maria Korachevsky surely had. It saddened him, because both Maria and Katerina had been kind to him, even though he was a complete stranger.

Eight years of Russian hell had made him appreciate small kindnesses, for in prison there were almost none of those. Maybe FSB hospitality had a way of changing one's views on the world; he'd never stopped to appreciate kindnesses like that before. He was more likely to give a curt nod in thanks because it was expected of him and then move on because he really took it for granted.

_Stop wallowing, North_. His mental voice had gained a lot of Ros Myers qualities over the past few months. _You've got a job to do_. Both these women had risked everything to save the information they'd found and help him in bringing it back to London and if he wanted to make those risks worth it, he had to man up and start acting like the Senior Case Officer he was, not the tender-hearted and vulnerable ex-prisoner Harry probably still believed him to be. It was part of the job description to take risks. People died sometimes, died for queen and country, died to protect others. No one would be helped by it if their colleagues and friends stopped doing what they did because of their deaths. Quite the contrary, only by carrying on with their work could they give their passing meaning.

And now was not the time to be wallowing anyway. He was still on an operation and the information he was looking for would be vital. If Arthur had been right and things were truly as bad as he thought them to be, there was no time to lose. Harry's fate depended on the things he was searching for and that was enough to sort his priorities.

The kitchen seemed abandoned as he entered. It didn't stop him from checking it out nonetheless. He wished he had a gun at hand, but he was unarmed. It might raise more questions than he wanted to answer if he had tried to bring a firearm into the country and he was trying to pass unnoticed. It didn't do anything to make him feel safer. He was out on a limb and he knew it.

Lucas took a deep breath and cast a glance around the kitchen in search for the drawers that had been mentioned. Katerina had spoken about them as if they were the only drawers in the whole kitchen, since she had not specified where exactly they could be found. At first glance it was rather hard to see them though. The kitchen was larger than he had expected and the panic was threatening to grip him by the throat, crippling him indefinitely. _The man in the leather jacket is FSB_, Katerina had said. _They're looking for you everywhere. I saw him call for a back-up and they will be here in ten minutes._

That should have sufficed to make any spook worth his salt want to run for it. And Lucas was not just any spook. He was a spook with a solid eight years' experience with FSB nastiness. And he was not about to subject himself to a repeat performance, not while there was still breath in his body. He'd honestly rather die than go through that again.

But ten minutes was not a long time. He would need to hurry up if he wanted to find the package Maria had planted before he would have his tormentors on his heels again. His hands felt sweaty and at the same time he felt cold, chilled to the bone. His heart was racing and he felt like throwing up.

Part of him told him that going back to Russia had been a mistake, the worst one he'd made in many, many years. He knew the danger he would be in if he did go back and yet he had gone when Harry asked him to. And Harry needed him to, especially if he was now locked up and interrogated like he was a common criminal, which Lucas knew he was not. He was not a traitor and that package that should be hidden somewhere in this kitchen would prove him innocent. And they needed Harry to be proven clean. Without him at the helm, the team would fall apart. They would follow Ros's orders, but Lucas didn't need to have a very intimate knowledge of what exactly had happened with her before he had been released to know that the team did not follow her lead willingly. When it came to Harry though, they were fiercely loyal. It was simple enough really.

And he would make sure that he was not taking all this risks for nothing. Maria had died for a reason and he would make sure of that. He had not come this far only to throw in the towel and admit defeat when things got difficult. That was not who he was. It was not how he had survived those eight years in hell. He had flown back to hell, as he had written to Arthur, but he was bloody well going to come out of it again and with the information Maria Korachevsky had hidden here.

It helped to give himself a reminder of just what was at stake should he fail. It did not stop his hands from feeling sweaty and it didn't do anything to control his nerves and nausea either. It did however make him sort his priorities. And there were drawers, four of them. He needed the third one down and then he had to get out of this place. He was already feeling claustrophobic.

The drawer in question looked like it hadn't been used in decades. It was dusty, but the large envelope in it was not, suggesting that it had not been there for long. That would have been dangerous too. If anyone would have found it, everything would have been in vain. Now however, he had what he came for.

The envelope contained three things. An airline ticket folded into a fake, but very real looking UK passport, another envelope and something small. He picked that up first. It was odd to see, a relic from times past, but Lucas remembered a microdot document when he happened upon one. That was the information he needed? He could not be certain now, not while he was still in Russia, unable to read the thing. Priority would be to get back to England first and that was going to be hard enough as it was already. It went into his trouser pocket, along with the passport.

He cast a glance over his shoulder and found the kitchen still blessedly empty. The only thing he heard was the loud music coming from the bar. While it may mask the sounds he made in here, it worked both ways. He could not hear any intruder coming either and that made him feel jumpier than he already was. He had to get out of here, the sooner, the better. By all rights he should stick the envelope in his pocket as well and see what was in it when he was safely out again.

But he had spent too much time hanging around Ros Work-first-everything-else-be-damned Myers and her attitude was catching. That must be the only reason why he opened that envelope and pulled out the photograph in it.

It was a picture of three people. The picture itself was black and white and obviously long pre-dated his recruitment to MI-5. Two of the people in the photograph were men and they had practically written KGB all over their faces. They were talking to the third person on the far right of the photo, a woman in a winter coat, who seemed to be rather familiar with them, even if she did not look at all like the kind of person working for the KGB.

No, her face, unlike that of the two men, was familiar. Her hair had gone grey now and her face had more wrinkles than it had had in the eighties, but her face was basically unchanged. Connie James. Connie was the mole.

For a moment Lucas thought it well possible that he had stopped breathing. Of course he had known that one in Section D was betraying the Sugarhorse operation to the FSB, but it was something else entirely to see it confirmed. Harry had said that there was a traitor in Section D and Lucas had no reason not to believe him. He had narrowed the suspects down to three himself already. It would be Connie, Malcolm or Ros. And he had been right. It was Connie. She had been the one to betray Sugarhorse and frame Harry. But had that been all that she had done? Would she not also be responsible for his delivery into the hands of the FSB?

At the same time it didn't make sense. The intelligence analyst had always been kind to him. She wasn't a very kind type of person, but she seemed to care about the team and the officers in it. She did her job well, had both intelligence and experience. She was the kindly grandmother type, not the traitor material.

But she was. This photograph proved it. And as he stared at it in shock, a memory resurfaced and he was back on the Grid, only just released, in clothes he had worn for so long he could not remember when he had put them on.

'Lucas North, I presume?' the elderly woman had said when she had walked towards him. 'Welcome back.'

'Thank you,' he'd said, still hardly able to believe the evidence of his own eyes.

They had shaken hands. 'Connie,' she introduced herself. 'Connie James.'

Lucas had heard of her, of course he had heard of her. She had been in the Service for about as long as Harry, he imagined. 'Connie James? Stuff of legend.'

She chuckled. 'Stuff of nightmares possibly.'

Lucas had laughed it away, taking it as a joke. And Malcolm's arrival had soon taken his attention elsewhere. To be honest, he had completely forgotten about it until now, when he found himself staring at the photograph in shock and disbelief. Because that was it. He did not want to believe this. When it came down to it, accepting that someone he had trusted so much was capable of doing that to him was a hard blow to take. And then to think that she had been working alongside him and he had never once suspected her of betrayal. No one had. And she was still on the Grid, working to undermine everything his colleagues would be working so hard to achieve.

That snapped him out of his shock. Yes, Ros's attitude towards work was catching. And at the moment he did not care that it was. His discovery had driven any fear of being discovered here himself clean from his mind, at least for the time being. He should get out of here, but that was not what he did. Instead he dug up his mobile phone and practically stabbed Ros's number into it.

She didn't answer, was possibly on the phone herself. She would be on a day like today, when the whole world appeared to be coming crumbling down. He swore under his breath, but did not give up yet. There was always Arthur. There was no doubt that he would be on their side in all of this and with a crisis like this going down, he might hang around the Section Chief. Else he wouldn't know what to do with himself. He might also be with Connie, since she had more or less taken him under her wing. He could only hope that this was not the case today.

He would not find out if Arthur was. The king of Camelot did not answer his phone either. The bloody device switched to voicemail straight away. 'This is the voicemail of Aidan Parker. I am currently unable…' Lucas had ended the call before Arthur's voice could finish his explanation of why he was not capable of answering in person.

It felt like he was being obstructed deliberately. And time was ticking away. Every minute he wasted here, the risk of being caught grew. Lucas was in no danger of forgetting that anytime soon. But his colleagues needed to be warned and so he had to try again. And he was not yet out of options. If Arthur hang around Ros like a lost puppy, then Merlin hang around Arthur like they had been joined at the hip. They came as a package deal, Lucas observed wryly. Normally it annoyed him, but now it was a gift from heaven.

And his luck held. The phone rang twice and then he heard the warlock's voice. 'Hello?'

'Merlin,' he acknowledged.

'Lucas?' The voice on the other end sounded utterly bewildered. 'Where are you? What's happening? Are you…?'

Under any other circumstance he might have wondered how he was supposed to get a word in when Merlin didn't give him a chance to talk in the first place. Today however he had far more important things on his mind. 'Merlin, Connie is the mole,' he said forcefully. 'She is the Russian mole. I've got photographic proof! Shit!'

The man in the leather jacket walked into the kitchen. It was only because he had seen him entering from the corner from his eyes that he was able to react in time. And that made him forget about the conversation on the phone. It made him even forget that he had a phone in his hand in the first place. That man was not here to ask him if he could find what he was looking for and would he perhaps need a hand? That man was ready to fight, Lucas could see, and he was not the type to back off.

For a moment he feared that the fear and the panic might cripple him, but then instinct took over. There was no thinking, just the fighting. He was vaguely aware that his opponent landed a few blows, but he hardly noticed. He could not afford the luxury of being slowed down, not with his life on the line.

But he did not particularly care about his life. All he cared about was not getting thrown back in the hell that was Russian prison. If he could get back to England alive, then that was the most preferable outcome, but if he died, he would not be disappointed either. It was better than the alternative and he had given his colleagues the information they needed anyway.

Nevertheless he fought, harder than he ever remembered fighting. If asked later, he could not tell what exactly had transpired. The fight passed in a blur. He could not even say how long it lasted or what he had done in that time. The first conscious thought was when he looked at the dead body of the FSB officer, chained and drowned in the sink. Lucas was vaguely aware that he was responsible for his death, but there was no guilt to tell him this was unacceptable. There was only an overwhelming relief that he was still alive.

_You won't be for much longer if you keep dawdling_, his brain commented. And that was true; Katerina had told him that back-up was on the way. So he took the envelope with the photograph, checked if the passport and the microdot document were still there and practically fled out of the kitchen, out of the bar and back to the street.

* * *

**This is a day early, I know, but I'll be running around tomorrow all day, so I won't have time to update then, so there we are.  
**

**On another note, I made a mistake last chapter. In the Merlin POV last chapter it said that Merlin had never met Nicholas Blake in person, while there's a reference in Just Another Normal Day that he actually had. I corrected it now.**

**Next time: Ros sees Harry and Merlin might just make one very big mistake. Until then, please review?**


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

**Ros**

It had been a long shot, Ros knew, trying to work out the Sugarhorse assets were by looking at which Russian officials had ever made contact with MI-5. The thing was that there was any number of reasons why Russians would make contact and most of them had nothing to do with Sugarhorse at all.

Ros felt tired and it was more a fatigue of the mind than it was of the body, but if she were to show that to her colleagues they would know that even Rosalind Myers didn't know what to do anymore and then where would they be? She was still the only thing standing between them and absolute chaos. She envied Jo, who was getting so tired of it all that she took a moment to rest her head in her hands. If Ros did that, it would be interpreted as her being at a dead end. Her colleagues would lose heart – even more than already was the case – and then they would go into free fall. It didn't lessen her wish to give in to the urge of giving up, especially after the next file turned out to be another wild goose chase. So far Arthur and Ros had worked their way through a whole stack of files – she had lost count of how many some time ago – and they had only two possible candidates to show for it. That didn't mean that none of the others were Sugarhorse assets, but they had behaved less than suspicious. Not much was on file, probably to guarantee that no outsider would be able to work out the network all on their own. The Sugarhorse network was designed to be unbreakable. _Damn you, Harry, for teaching your assets the job so well._

'Nothing?' Arthur asked. The king of Camelot looked positively dishevelled; his hair stood out to all sides as a result of him brushing his hands through it repeatedly. He was not the ideal person to work with. Ros still felt like he was not quite able to understand what exactly this was all about or what he was even doing. But he tried and he had been the one to point out their strongest Sugarhorse candidate so far. He did make an effort, even if the Section Chief strongly suspected he only did it for Lucas's sake. She didn't care about his sodding motives though. What she cared about was that he did it. And she needed someone on her side.

She shook her head. 'Nothing.' Nothing for three quarters of the bloody hour, not since Arthur's latest discovery and she would be lying if she said she wasn't losing faith in what they were doing. There didn't seem to be any progress and assets could be killed in Russia even as they were speaking. It was not something she wanted to contemplate at the moment, but Dolby was unlikely to just let her forget about it. He poked his head in every once in a while, demanding what they had for him so far. Thus far her answer to him was the same she had given Arthur: nothing.

Connie had come walking out of Harry's office a little while ago, with a face like thunder. Ros had tasked her with keeping in contact with Dolby. She didn't think she could do it herself without exploding instantly. Connie at least could pay that bastard insult without him even realising it. 'I'll go and fetch Ben,' the intelligence analyst announced. 'We might want to see where we all stand.'

Ros nodded reluctantly. That did seem to be the only sensible option. Her chosen approach didn't seem to be getting them anywhere, none of them. Russian chatter was annoyingly vague and unhelpful, Ben had not yet come back with any findings, Jo encountered dead end after dead end in her search for Qualtrough and Ros and Arthur barely had any results either. It was disheartening to say the least. And all the while time went on. Harry was still interrogated, Lucas still at risk in Russia and Russia and the United States were sliding into crisis deeper by the bloody minute. Ros liked a challenge, but this was taking the concept of challenge a bit too far in her opinion.

'Miss Myers?' Ros all but jumped out of her chair when she heard Dolby's voice behind her. But she would not give this man the satisfaction of letting him know that he had startled her. It felt too much like he was getting one over her and Ros was not in the habit of letting that happen.

'What?' she asked ungraciously. She would have gone on to snap at him that she had nothing for him yet, as she would do with Harry if he had ever been as stupid as to demand progress reports every five minutes, which he wasn't. 'Sir,' she added belatedly. She didn't want to put her career in the line after all, today least of all.

Dolby was the very image of smugness. 'I've just spoken to Charles Grady,' he informed her. 'Harry would like to see you.'

Ros's stomach did a somersault in reaction. She didn't know Charles Grady personally, but she knew of him. He specialised in counter-intelligence, which was just a polite word for interrogator. And he had a reputation as a ruthless and merciless bastard, who almost always managed to get a confession once he had been allowed to really turn the screws on a suspect. He wasn't actually allowed to inflict torture on his victims, not of the type Lucas had suffered anyway, but he didn't need to. His speciality was mind games and he was very good at it.

_You have that monster interrogating Harry?_ Merlin had only told her that the man who was questioning Harry was looking particularly nasty, which summed Mr Grady up to perfection as far as Ros was aware. Had Harry not made a controversial decision, then she would have been subjected to his many charms after her involvement with Yalta, she knew. Even a near-death experience and six months in exile were better than that. And they had put her boss through that particular form of hell and he was not the youngest man to walk the earth anymore. _You bastard._

She felt the urge to spit in Dolby's face, but that might cost her both her chance to see Harry and her job and that was not worth it. They normally never let anyone who was not counter-intelligence even near a suspect and the fact that they had done now, made Ros at least hope that Harry had been able to strike some kind of bargain with his interrogator and that might mean that he was still in possession of his wits. It was a long shot, but then, so was everything else she was doing today. And hope was better than despair anyway.

'Thank you,' she managed to get out from between clenched teeth.

'Shall I walk you down?' Dolby offered.

_And give you any more chance to gloat? No, thank you very much_. She conjured up her professional smile and Dolby did a step back. It was a small victory, but a victory nonetheless. 'I wouldn't want to keep you,' she replied, trying to make her voice sound as sickeningly sweet as possible. 'You must be very busy after all, debriefing all your assets.' She at least hoped that was what he was doing, because that meant he was at least doing something useful for a change. The expression on his face however made her believe he had done nothing of the kind.

But she did not give him the chance to reply. She marched over to the pods and left the Grid, wondering what exactly it was that Harry wanted to see her about. So far she had to admit that she did not have a clue. And Ros did not particularly like surprises. In her line of work surprises were seldom positive and in the middle of all this mess that was unlikely to change now.

It was tempting to start jumping to conclusions, but Ros had been in the Service for long enough to know that was one of the worst sins an intelligence officer could commit. Check, check, check again and then, just to be absolutely sure, check it another time. Speculation had never gotten anyone anywhere.

There were guards on the door to the interrogation room, who required her identification before they admitted her into the room. They barely spared her a glance after they had seen who she was. Since Ros herself was not in a particularly talkative mood, she herself settled for a curt nod in thanks when the tallest of the two held the door open for her when she entered.

Merlin had seen how bad things were and he had managed to convey the seriousness of it by giving a rather convincing imitation of a corpse's colouring when he came back on the Grid, but it was not until Ros actually laid eyes on Harry that she realised that Merlin had not just been his tender-hearted self. It really was that bad.

Harry had been stripped of his usual suit and tie and had been given a shapeless boiler suit instead, making him look very old and very vulnerable. He looked drained and downright exhausted. Had he been up all night? When had the arrest been made? What had been done to him since? The questions were spinning around and Ros could hardly stop them. She was worried and she was long past fooling herself into believing that this was a mere professional worry. When had concern about her colleagues ever been strictly professional anyway?

In spite of his drugged state, Harry still got to his feet when he saw her entering, even if he had to grip the table in front of him to keep his balance. To an outsider Ros may give the impression of the well-known ice queen, but her blood was boiling and at the same time she felt like crying, just to let it all out.

Her undoing however was the sight of that pathetic excuse for a human being by the name of Charles Grady, who was looking at it all with an expression that was easily identified as satisfaction. Had Harry already confessed? Had he already given up the names of his assets? 'Can you at least give him a glass of water?' she asked. It took her all her willpower to keep herself from begging. The sight of the man who had become more of a father to her than her real father in such a state made her feel like bashing the interrogator's head in and made her want to cry at the same time. But the Ros Myers Conduct Protocol dictated that she never acted on either of those impulses.

'I'm afraid not,' Grady said, not sounding afraid at all.

Ros clenched her hands into fists, sent the man a freezing glare and then marched over to the table. She was here on a mission and she might need to treat Harry as an asset now, if her intuition was indeed right and Harry was trying to relay a piece of information to her, as she sincerely hoped he was planning.

Harry sat down when she did, still holding onto the table to keep himself from falling. Ros forced herself to take deep breaths and watch impassively. No matter how much she wanted, she could not stand up to help him. _By God, they'll pay for this._

'None of this is true, is it?' she asked when Harry didn't seem to take the initiative. And she found she needed the reassurance.

'I'm afraid it is.'

Four words. It were only four words, but they turned her world upside down. Now it was her turn to grasp the table as if her very life depended on it. Ros prided herself in knowing how to read Harry Pearce from the mere quirk of an eyebrow. And this was so much more than that. She heard it in his words, in his tone of voice and in the way he hung his head in shame.

All of a sudden she had trouble remembering how to breathe. Harry's confession was a physical pain almost. And she had never once even seen it coming. How could she have missed out on it? She had known him for years, she was his outstanding officer, the one he trusted unconditionally. But there was no doubt that he meant every word he said. He had betrayed them, all of them. Had he been the one to sell Lucas to the Russians in the first place, had he sent him there now for the same purpose? It made her sick to even think of it.

Ros had thought that the world had turned upside down this morning. It was only now that she realised this was the moment when her whole world crumbled into dust. There were few certainties in her line of work, but one of them had been Harry. He was the rock on which Section D was built, the glue that kept them all together, the man with the unwavering loyalty to the British state, who even broke the rules of aforementioned state if that was what it took to protect it. Without that certainty Ros felt like she was going into free fall.

But she couldn't move. She sat in her chair as if she had frozen into it, unable to believe, to really believe that she had indeed been lied to in such a manner. How was this possible? Was Harry really that good an actor that she had never been able to see through him, the way he had not seen through her when she got herself involved with Yalta? But they had not been close then, not yet. This, this hurt more because their bond was closer.

And Harry was not even done yet. 'I've betrayed you and the entire team,' he confessed. Every word was dripping with shame and Ros thought that it was sincere. Before now she had thought she knew this man and then she would have said with certainty that he meant it. Now she was not so sure anymore. Could she be sure of anything anymore now that things were the way they were? _I trusted you. I bloody well need you!_ 'I gave my Sugarhorse assets to the FSB.'

Good grief, was he about to tell her everything he had done? Was it not bad enough that he was the bloody traitor? Every word he spoke felt like she was stabbed with a knife right to the heart. It took her all her strength to keep her famous blank face in place.

'I can understand how you must feel,' Harry went on. _You know nothing of how I feel! I trusted you!_ 'But in my defence, my priority has been the renaissance…' He struggled to find the right words. '… The renaissance of something I believe in profoundly.'

And it fit. Harry was a man who fought for his beliefs, no matter what the consequences were. Ros had just never believed that he would ever put his faith in Russia. Good heavens, none of this made any sense. How was she even supposed to do her job when she could not in all honesty trust her own judgement when it had failed her so spectacularly?

Harry bowed his head again. 'I'm very sorry, Ros.' Again, he sounded like he meant it, but how was she to tell? She couldn't be sure of anything any longer.

She could feel her hands trembling, but she'd die before she showed any weakness and so she turned around. 'Can you let me out now?' She could barely keep the tremor in her voice under control. Barely.

She was let out, but her head seemed to have been removed from her shoulders. Her eyes were burning and her chest felt like it was stuck in some nineteenth century corset that was much too tight for her to breathe. She stumbled though the corridor and into the nearest bathroom she could find mostly by good luck, because her vision was blurred by something she stubbornly refused to refer to as tears. Only after she had carefully locked the door behind her did she sink to the ground and then Ros Myers cried.

**Merlin**

The paper archive was a rather dusty and altogether unpleasant place. Merlin had been there only once before. It was three weeks ago and he had popped in to say hello. Unfortunately the spooks were in the middle of something important and Ros had not approved of the fact that he had been chatting with Jo while she had work to do. The result was that both of them had been sent down to make sure the place wasn't as dusty anymore. Merlin's magic had taken care of that and they had spent the remaining time planning what to do with the evening. Apparently three weeks were more than sufficient for even more dust to gather.

And in those three weeks he had also more or less forgotten just how big the paper archive was. How were they ever going to find the authorisation file used to access Borkhovin's file in this? There was so much paperwork.

Ben took a deep breath. 'There we are. Don't you have a magic trick to locate the access slips?'

He did and so he nodded. 'It might only give us a general direction, though,' he warned.

'But it will help.'

There was no arguing with that. Merlin concentrated and whispered a spell. The next thing he heard was the sound of something flying through the air and when he looked up, there was a box flying over to them. Normally the thing would have hit Ben in the stomach, but Merlin had been controlling objects since he was a few months old – driving his mother crazy in the process – and it didn't really take any thought making it stop in mid-air and then making it land on the table in front of them.

Ben looked a little impressed. 'That's something, all right,' he remarked.

Merlin never really got the measure of Ben. All he knew was that he was relatively new to spying. In discussions he mostly listened, but every now and then he would suddenly launch a good idea, which made up for the long silences on his part. The warlock never quite knew if he liked him, but at least he didn't dislike him and that was enough to be getting on with.

And nothing helped bonding along more than sitting in a paper archive, wading through what felt like a million access slips. No matter how hard Merlin tried, there was no way his magic could narrow things down a bit more, which meant that they would have to have a look at each and every one they had in front of them to find the authorisation slip for Borkhovin's file. Needle in a haystack, Connie had said and the longer they were there, the more Merlin began to believe her. Who'd have thought so many pieces of paper would fit into one single box? Even the odds of finding a needle in a haystack were more favourable than the odds they were facing.

Ben laughed when he put that sentiment into the spoken word. 'Yeah, I bet.' He stretched as he tried and failed to suppress a yawn. 'I could do with a cup of coffee.'

Merlin in turn tried and failed to stop himself from returning the compliment. 'Me too. Shall I get us some?' He felt like they had been locked in here for ages and they had made no progress at all. The worst thing was that his magic was no use in working out who was betraying Sugarhorse and, consequently, the entire team to the Russians. He had always needed to rely on his own wits for uncovering traitors and it had never taken him much trouble in Camelot. Most traitors were easy to see through, but then, none of the ones he had uncovered were trained spies, who kept secrets as a part of their job description. He was clueless in this and he could not say he enjoyed the feeling.

'If it's not too much trouble,' Ben said, bending back over the papers on his half of the table.

'Of course not.' He gave the spy a knowing smile. 'I'm a servant, remember? If Arthur was given half a chance he'd be ordering me around here as well, but…'

'… Connie would have his head,' Ben finished. And he was right. The intelligence analyst had tutted disapprovingly when she witnessed it on their first day in Thames House and Arthur had backed off, looking like a young boy caught making mischief.

'If Ros didn't beat her to it,' Merlin added wryly, shoving his chair back in order to get up.

The chirruping of his mobile phone interrupted with his plans to get coffee. That was an almost unique occasion. Since he was not very often in London and very few people had his phone number – Merlin would be hard-pressed to even remember what his own number was – people did not often ring him. Jo was the most frequent of callers and this was not her number. He was sure of that. In fact, this number did not seem familiar to him at all.

Nonetheless, it wouldn't do to let the thing chirrup until the device switched itself to voicemail. For all he knew this was Ros demanding a progress report. It would not be the brightest idea he'd ever had to keep her waiting. She'd have him locked up in this place long after the operation if he had the gut to ignore her.

'Hello?' he said hesitantly.

'Merlin?' a voice on the other end asked.

And he knew that voice. 'Lucas?' But Lucas was not here. Lucas was in Moscow. He had seen that for himself when he spied on him. 'Where are you? What's happening? Are you…?'

He meant to ask if Lucas was all right, but the spy didn't give him an opportunity to finish his sentence. He sounded tense, jumpy.

'Merlin, Connie is the mole,' Lucas interrupted him. 'She is the Russian mole. I've got photographic proof! Shit!'

The sound of fighting came through the phone. There were shouts and the sound of things and people getting hit with considerable force. This was wrong. Something was very wrong. 'Lucas?' Merlin tried. 'Lucas!'

But there was nothing he could do and the connection was broken soon afterwards, leaving the warlock talking to just a lifeless device. And he did not know what was happening or why it was happening, but it was bad news for sure.

And it did not make sense either. Connie, a traitor? It seemed impossible. He liked Connie, got along well with her. And she hated Russians. They were always the first she sought to blame when something was wrong. It seemed so strange that she now would turn out to be working for them. _I've got photographic proof_, Lucas had said. And he was a good spy, one who checked his facts as well as used his intuition. He would not have called if he was not sure. Did he have any other option than to accept what he had told him?

'Merlin?' Ben looked at him in what appeared to be worry. 'Was that Lucas? What is happening?'

_I wish I knew_. 'Connie,' he managed to say. 'Connie is the mole.'

Anyone else might have been crippled by hearing something like that about a colleague, but spooks were a strange lot. If anything, they were far more prepared to accept the impossible than normal people. They did not let themselves be crippled by the announcement that a trusted colleague and friend had betrayed them all. Ben was a spy and he understood the situation quicker than Merlin had believed possible of anyone. What's more, he acted on it.

'You need to tell Ros,' he said. 'I'll find the access slip to back it up.'

Merlin gave himself a mental kick in the behind when he caught himself almost falling into the trap of not putting the job first. If Connie really was a traitor – something he found very hard to believe – then she could wreak havoc untold for as long as she was here. That consequently put Arthur in danger as well and that was something he could not stand for. It was his destiny to protect Arthur after all, even if the king himself was none too fond of the idea.

'I'll go now,' he announced, making good on that by exiting the paper archive and breaking into a run the moment he shut the door behind him. The sooner Ros was told, the better it would be. She wouldn't want to waste any time at all and she would scold him for dawdling if she caught him in the act. Whether or not Lucas's information was correct, he simply did not have the time to find out. He would leave the checking of facts to the Section Chief.

He was so deep in thought that he didn't notice the intelligence analyst until he nearly crashed into her. It was only her quick reflex that prevented them from running into her head first.

'No running here, young man!' she scolded him. 'Where were you off to in such a hurry?'

_Lie_, his subconscious advised and Merlin wholly agreed with it. He may not want to believe the worst, but he would much rather be safe than sorry. And so he forced his face into a dazzling smile. 'I'm getting coffee,' he announced. 'Are you going to the paper archive? Should I bring some for you too? Coffee, tea?' He caught himself before his chatter could turn to rambling. That used to give him away a lot and that was the last thing he could use right now, not with a possible traitor standing right in front of him.

'I'm fetching Ben. Stay up on the Grid. Ros wants to have another team briefing.' Connie gave him a stern look, as if Ros's decision was somehow his fault, although he could not see how that was possible. 'Although I hope Rosalind knows what she is doing.'

_She doesn't_, Merlin knew. There weren't very many clues for that opinion, but there were a fair few and Merlin did know how to read people. He had to in his line of work. Ros was uncertain about what she was doing, but she hid it well. She had to, Merlin imagined, or else the whole team would fall apart. 'So, you don't want coffee, then?' he checked.

'Tea, please,' Connie said. 'You can leave it on my desk.' She had walked away before Merlin had the chance to point out to her that she had actually been the one who told Arthur he was not to be used as a servant around here. Really, he was glad she was gone. Something had been different and he had not been able to put his finger on it. But it was wrong. Something was terribly wrong. Maybe it was only because Lucas's words had wriggled its way into his head, but he did not think so. There had been something in her face, her eyes. It was suspicion, he decided, and a bit of fear too. It was almost as if she was scared of what Ben and he could have uncovered.

Part of him was urging him to go back and fetch Ben himself. It was only a feeling, but he feared that the spy was in some kind of danger. _From an elderly woman with no muscle to speak of? Please!_ Ben was a strong young man and even if Merlin's feeling was justified, he could hold his own. He was just being ridiculous. And Ros needed to be informed.

And so he ran off towards the Grid, anxious to get Ros to know what she should know before Connie could return. As it was, Ros was standing at Malcolm's desk, looking as if the world had just ended. That was an alarming thing in and out of itself, since Ros Myers would rather die than show her emotions to others. Malcolm and Arthur were with her, both seemingly mightily confused, which, in turn, confused Merlin.

'What's happening?' he demanded as he skidded to a stop next to them.

'Harry's the mole,' Malcolm said when it became clear that neither Ros nor Arthur was going to give an answer. He sounded as if he could not believe it himself.

Merlin shook his head. 'He can't be.' The denial was immediate. He still didn't believe Connie to be the traitor material, but he was fairly certain that Harry was an even less likely candidate for treason than the intelligence analyst. 'It's Connie.' The longer he thought about it, the more likely it became. Trouble was that he did not want to believe that of her, not after the enormous help she had been to him. 'Lucas called,' he explained when he found himself stared at by three pairs of eyes who asked him whether or not he had lost his mind since lunchtime. 'He said he had photographic proof and…'

He had meant to go on, but Ros stopped him. Well, she did not truly stop him, but her facial expression took care of that for her. She seemed… relieved was the word, he supposed. It seemed if she just had the Holy Spirit revealed to her, as she had once phrased it to Merlin when he had one of his bright ideas. 'Renaissance,' she whispered.

Arthur frowned at her. 'Renai… _what_?' Merlin felt like asking the exact same thing. It felt as if the world had stopped making sense to him, roughly around the same time that Lucas had called him to inform him that Connie, of all people, was the traitor they were looking for. Ros's seemingly completely unrelated remark – he didn't even know what renaissance meant – didn't do anything to make him understand.

Ros however did not listen to the king. Every sign of weakness had instantly vanished and the determined Section Chief had resurfaced. 'Come,' she told them. She marched away to Harry's office, currently free of any Dolby-related presence, leaving the other three no other choice than to follow her.

'What are we doing?' Merlin asked, unable to stop himself from asking. There was no big chance of Ros actually paying attention to him, never mind that she would answer his question, but he asked all the same.

And Ros replied, even though it was aimed at Malcolm rather than at the warlock. 'Pull up everything you can relating to the codename Renaissance,' she ordered. She sounded just as tense as Lucas had done on the phone.

Malcolm did as he was told, taking Harry's chair in order to work on Harry's computer. Merlin knew enough of the devices to see that Dolby had not logged out when he left, leaving Malcolm free to work his particular brand of magic on it. The warlock could feel the tension in the room, the anticipation, and he did not even know what it was that they were hoping to find here. Ros's explanation, as in so far that word could even be used, had been greatly lacking and he just felt confused.

He was meaning to ask when Malcolm found what he was looking for, and then Operation Renaissance turned out to be a thirty year old operation, run by Harry in Moscow. 'Its object was to persuade the KGB that they had a mole inside MI-5.'

Now things were starting to get clearer. Merlin remembered Operation Camelot, remembered how Lucas had been sent to Morgana, pretending to be sympathetic to her cause. He still was not wholly convinced that the spy had not been sympathetic to her in the slightest. What if the person who had been used to mislead the Russians had really fallen into that trap?

Ros's thoughts must have been running along the same lines. 'Who was the officer used to dupe them?'

Malcolm looked at the screen again. 'Connie James,' he replied, disbelief obvious in his voice. 'Traitor.'

It felt like pieces of a puzzle falling into place, but heaven help him, did this make for a terrifying picture as a result. A cold chill went down his spine as he too looked at the screen and saw it for himself. Lucas was right.

* * *

**Not one of the easiest chapters to write, but hopefully it turned out all right. Next time: Arthur finds this whole turn of events difficult to deal with and Merlin gets sent on a mission. **

**Please review?**


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

**Arthur**

It felt as if his world was in acute danger of collapsing, Arthur thought. Yes, he had known that someone on the Grid was betraying them even as they worked to find out who it was, but Arthur had just done his level best not to think of it. The thought of having to face yet another betrayal was enough to cripple him. Or maybe it just would have him yelling and screaming in frustration when he thought of it. He had seen too many betrayals in his life, Morgana, Agravaine. Even his own father had lied to him. How much more could he really take before he collapsed?

But he was still standing, even if he did not exactly know how. Ros's whispered announcement that Harry was the mole, that he had confessed it to her and that she did not think he was lying had sent his head reeling. Harry was the steady rock of the team, the one he would expect to always be there, like Gaius would always be in Camelot, no matter how bad things were. He wasn't the type of person to betray what he believed in. But Ros, who knew the Section Head far better than Arthur did, had believed it. Who was he to question her judgement in this case?

He would however not deny that he had been relieved when Merlin came running onto the Grid to tell them that Harry was in fact not the traitor. He had been equal parts relieved and shocked when he found out that the traitor was in fact Connie, the intelligence analyst of the section.

But that did not make sense either and he wanted to go and deny it right away. The only thing stopping him from making good on that intention was Merlin's announcement that Lucas had been the one to discover this. Apparently he also had photographic proof of it and that was something that would be hard to argue with. And Lucas had never once led them astray. They may have believed that he did, but that had been their mistake, not Lucas's.

And Malcolm's little trip into the digital archive only confirmed Merlin's words. Connie was the traitor. The very woman he had turned to for advice since the first time he had stepped foot on the Grid had been a traitor all along. She had been a traitor for thirty years. How could he not have noticed that?

_I've been such a fool_. The thought wriggled its way into his head and took up residence there. How could he not have noticed? How was it possible that every time he was being betrayed, he was the last to know? Why did he keep putting his faith in the wrong people? Were other people betrayed as often as he was? He didn't think so. It kept happening to him, to no one else. And he knew that this may not be meant to hurt him personally – this treachery pre-dated his coming to London by decades – but it hurt all the same. He had considered the analyst a dear friend.

And he had trusted her too. She was a mother-like figure, even though she would hate to be called that. She was the one who always stopped to explain things to him, so that he would not feel like a complete failure in this day and age. She was always kind to him, in her own way of course, but kind nonetheless. To even think of her as a traitor felt like treason.

But he could not argue with the evidence. It was there, on that screen, for everyone to see. To deny it would be foolish, childish even. But he could not help it. He felt it. He felt angry. Merlin would have called it hurt probably, if he had been paying attention. Fortunately he wasn't. He was looking at the screen. Even though he had been the one to deliver the news, he looked shell-shocked, as if could hardly believe it himself.

The same was true for Malcolm, but not for Ros. She was not moving, but Arthur had seen that facial expression before. She was angry. Very angry.

So when Richard Dolby came marching into the office, looking every bit the cat that ate the canary, it was not a mystery on whom that anger would be taken out. All she waited for was a legitimate excuse to explode. With Dolby here, there was bound to be a good excuse sooner rather than later.

'It doesn't matter what you're trying,' he said, looking like he was a king and they were stupid peasants who had tried and failed to go behind his back, not something Arthur was very used to. 'I've got the names of Harry's assets and I've already passed them on to a trustworthy officer. Within twenty minutes they'll all be on their way to tell us what they know.' He gave every impression of expecting a pat on the shoulders for a job well done.

But he was not going to get it from Arthur. Something about his tone of voice had made him feel uneasy. 'Who is the officer?' he demanded. An altogether frightening idea had just popped up into his head. Dolby had not given the impression to trust anyone in this section farther than he could throw them, except for one. Connie had spent a lot of time in this office today. Of course, Ros had sent her to make nice with Dolby on their behalf and when asked about it, Connie herself had reacted with a wry 'Sometimes we have to sup with the devil in order to get some work done.' What if those visits were not all they seemed?

'I can't tell that to you,' Dolby said haughtily.

'It's Connie, isn't it?' Arthur asked sharply.

Dolby's facial expression was all the confirmation they needed.

'You are a fool,' Ros said. The words sounded as if they were coming from between clenched teeth, as if she was forcing herself not to explode instantly. 'I know why Harry wanted to see me. Connie James was turned during Operation Renaissance. I suggest you seal the building and arrest her for treason.' She demonstratively turned her back on a very flabbergasted Dolby and addressed the three of them. 'You, with me.'

Arthur didn't dare protest and so he followed her out and to the meeting room. Jo had disappeared and Ben was not back yet, so they were the only ones present. Well, not the only ones. Mordred had seen them walking across the Grid and joined them just before Malcolm slid the door shut. For a moment Ros looked as if she might send him away, but she merely gave him a stern glare and allowed him to take a seat.

The king didn't know what Ros wanted to do now. He could only hope that she had some sort of plan, because he certainly hadn't. He felt empty, angry. In fact, he didn't really know what he felt. There were so many things he felt that he could not even begin to name them. All he knew was the he didn't know what to do.

Thank goodness for Ros Myers. She didn't seem to be taking any of this personal, not in the slightest. There was just anger with her and none of the feeling of being betrayed again that Arthur himself experienced, not that he could see anyway.

'Merlin, you said Lucas called?' she asked briskly.

The servant nodded. 'He did. But I think he's in trouble. There was shouting and fighting and then the line went dead…' His voice trailed off as he found himself on the receiving end of one of Ros Myers's best death glares.

'You are only telling me this now?' she snapped. 'Why?'

Merlin would have cowered back into his chair if this had happened during Operation Camelot, but those days were now behind them and the acknowledgement of his magic had brought about a huge change, Arthur observed. He was much more confident in his abilities and far less easily frightened by authority figures than he had been. And Ros's accusation had riled him. 'Because I thought passing on the information to you would be more useful!' he countered.

Ros was not impressed. 'What sort of fight?' Her face was as neutral as it always was, but Arthur saw that she had one of her hands clenched into a fist. No matter what people may think, Ros cared about her colleagues – the ones that didn't go around betraying all of them, that was – and she would not let any of them be longer in harm's way than really necessary.

Merlin shook his head helplessly. 'I don't know,' he confessed. 'There were shouts, but not much else to go on. There weren't any guns though, not that I could hear.' Well, that was a relief indeed, even if it did nothing to truly reassure either the king or the Section Chief. There were more ways a person could die than from a wound caused by a bullet, as Arthur knew full well.

'Can you seek him out?' he asked. 'In that bowl of water?' He had enough of this. There was too much misery around here and all in one single day. His chest was aching with something he stubbornly refused to refer to as hurt, but Connie's betrayal had hit him hard, no matter if it had or had not been meant to hurt him personally. Like Harry Pearce would say, had he been here to say it, he needed some good news. Lately he felt he had a lot in common with the Section Head, though hopefully not the treatment he was subjected to. The last thing he needed was for another friend to be in danger. Lucas had been through quite enough already without adding another visit to Russian prison to add to the list.

Merlin nodded. 'I'll get the bowl.'

Arthur waited. He could see Mordred was uneasy, but the soon-to-be knight was not his main priority now. Maybe Merlin had been right and it had been a foolish idea to take him with them to London, if for entirely different reasons. Arthur had assumed that Mordred, being a sorcerer and therefore used to the strange things in the world, might adapt as well as Merlin had done the first time. But it would seem that he was proven wrong in that assumption. The young man seemed quite out of his depth and he should be; there was nothing he could do here and that was bound to make him feel highly uncomfortable.

But he should wait until all of this was over and this world had been set to right. Because that was his duty. He owed these people, Lucas and Ros in particular after all they had done and, in Lucas's case, sacrificed for him and his kingdom.

But the vision Merlin conjured up did nothing to make him feel like all was well or would be well in the foreseeable future. It took him some time to conjure the vision, but what they saw then was bad. Lucas was running, face as white as a sheet, through alleys and backstreets in a city that Arthur did not recognise. Behind him, too close behind him, were men who looked like they were not going to kindly ask him for directions to the nearest inn. Arthur Pendragon may not be the most skilled man to deal with situations in the twenty-first century – he would even admit to that when he was in a good mood – and he found himself at fault most of the time, but even he could see what this looked like. Even he could see that if something was not done soon, then Lucas would be cornered, and taken prisoner again, maybe even killed. After what Lucas had gone through at Morgana's hands, he was loath to allow the spy to be subjected to a repeat performance.

'We have to do something!' he exclaimed. The words had left his mouth before he had allowed himself any time at all to think them through. He didn't regret them though. He meant it. Merlin may think he was a spoiled prat, but he was loyal to his friends and whether or not Lucas realised it, Arthur did regard him as a friend and would act accordingly if only given half a chance.

His cry had however gained him Ros's undivided attention. 'And how pray are you going to do that?' she demanded. 'By the time the bloody plane lands in Moscow it will be too late or do you now suggest you can magically whisk him out of there?'

Most people would back away when Ros Myers snapped at them in such a way, but Arthur was not most people. He was the king of Camelot and consequently, hard though it may be to believe, had seen far worse than the Section Chief of Section D in a foul mood. 'Yes, that is what I am suggesting. If Merlin can find him there, then how difficult can it be for magically go there, get Lucas and bring him home?' The plan had come up as he spoke of it, but what did that matter anyway? All that did matter was that it was a solution and the only one that would allow them to get Lucas out in time. He imagined that Morgana's treatment would seem like a walk in the castle garden on a sunny afternoon compared to what the FSB might do to the spy if they got their hands on him.

Merlin however looked doubtful. 'Arthur, I've never transported myself over such a long distance. I don't even know if anyone has done it before. It may not even work!'

Arthur fixed him with the sternest stare he could manage. 'If you are suggesting that we leave the man who risked his life for me time and again at the mercy of those men…' He stabbed a finger at the bowl with water, even though the vision in it was long gone. He hated this part of Merlin. Sometimes he did not even seem to care that there were others who were worthy of help and protection apart from Arthur. Sometimes he felt suffocated with how protective Merlin was. 'Good grief, isn't he worth it to try, especially after all he has done for us already?' Merlin looked like he was about to contradict his king and it made him angry.

'Maybe if we were to combine our strength, we may succeed.' The one who spoke up was the last one Arthur had expected to speak, since he was so ill at ease here. There was nothing of uncertainty in Mordred's voice now as he spoke. In fact, he seemed thrilled at the idea of being able to do something useful. 'I know my powers are not as great as yours, but it may help.'

Merlin's face looked like a shadow had passed over it. 'No.' The answer was both curt and immediate.

_Oh, for the love of…_ What was the matter with Merlin? Was he not past that old rivalry now? To be honest, it was starting to get ridiculous and Arthur was on the verge of saying so, but Mordred beat him to it. 'Emrys, don't you see?' he pleaded. 'I only want to help. I'm useless here. I don't understand this age or its customs, so let me contribute in a way I know how to. Please.'

'That's been decided then,' Ros said. Arthur had a lingering suspicion she would not even have objected if it was Agravaine who had ordered his help in retrieving Lucas, as long as she was sure that it was done. She may not say it, but her actions spoke for her and she would not leave a colleague and a friend out in the cold as long as she could help it. 'Merlin and Mordred collect Lucas. Malcolm, you keep an eye on the chatter now that Connie is unavailable. Arthur, make sure Richard Dolby is off the Grid as soon as possible…'

'No,' Merlin said again, rudely interrupting Ros's orders.

It seemed that the Section Chief was close to explosion, because she suspected Merlin was not willing to risk his life for Lucas. Arthur, who knew for a fact that this was not what this was about, spoke up before she could. 'That was an order, _Mer_lin. Go to Moscow with Mordred, find Lucas and bring him back. Is there some part of that order which you didn't understand?'

Merlin looked indignant. 'Of course not, but…'

'Then what are you waiting for?' the king of Camelot demanded.

Merlin may have protested again, had the doors not slid open in that moment to allow Jo to enter. She took in the scene, saw the angry faces and seemed to be contemplating doing a runner before she would be torn apart and gobbled up for lunch by the owners of aforementioned faces. 'I'm sorry…'

Ros's patience, very much like Arthur's, was non-existent. 'Out with it, Jo. Or would you rather have me wait until bloody Christmas?'

Jo swallowed. 'Security just called,' she reported. 'The locks to the paper archive have been tampered with.'

Arthur felt a cold chill go down his spine.

**Ros**

She had a bad feeling about this, a very bad feeling. Ros Myers had a good intuition, gained in the years and years that she had worked in this place. There was not always evidence for the things they suspected, but she didn't always need it anyway. And this was one of those occasions that she felt her blood run cold.

It could mean nothing. It was just the lock to the paper archive that was not behaving as it should. Or rather, that was how it could have been, had Ben not been in the paper archive looking for the proof they needed to pinpoint their traitor and if Ros had not sent aforementioned traitor down to fetch him. She wasn't given to cold chills, but she had one now.

'Send security down to open the door,' she ordered Jo. Her voice sounded as if it came from far, not from her mouth at all. But it was strong and decisive and that had to count for something. She could not show how caught off balance she was.

Mistake after mistake. Sugarhorse was still at risk, she had let herself be fooled by Connie, never truly believing that the intelligence analyst could truly be a traitor, and she would have to admit that in believing Harry when he said that he was the mole, her self-esteem had not been boosted either. How could she lead this team if she was this easily fooled? Harry had been taken captive, Lucas was at risk and God only knew what had become of Ben.

_Stop wallowing, Myers_, she reprimanded herself. She had a job to do, and so had Merlin, who was looking like he had seen a particular frightening kind of ghost. 'Go,' she commanded.

The warlock may be as thrown off by this as she was, but apparently he could still find it in himself to protest. 'But…' He seemed to struggle to find the right words. 'If he's in danger, then…'

And Ros was not in the mood for it. She was not even sure that her orders were the right ones, the ones that should be given, but this team still relied on her. And Lucas was still in danger. Just for once, to hell with professional distance. This had long since ceased to be just work. This was personal. She might as well indulge in it for just this once. It didn't look like she would be working here for much longer here anyway, not with the failures she had made today. 'No.' She all but growled the word. 'You take your magical friend and get Lucas out of there. And if he's got so much as a hair out of place, I'll know who to blame.' She didn't think she could take any more blows than she had already. There was a limit and right now, she had reached it.

And she feared for Ben. She could only hope that she was not so obvious about it as Merlin was. No, she had never really gotten along with him – Yalta had always been standing between them and a smooth working relationship – but he belonged to her team and she may have unwillingly exposed him to danger by sending Connie to him.

Why had her alarm bells not gone off the very moment Connie offered to go and fetch Ben? Why hadn't they? She knew the answer as well. She had not given it as much as a second thought because she had been preoccupied. Digging through an endless stack of files and getting ever more frustrated with the lack of results had made her almost forget that she ought to be wary of Connie. And the intelligence analyst must have known that, known it and made good use of it.

And it did not sit well with Ros that she had not seen either of them since Connie said she would go down to fetch Ben. Was she aware of the fact that her cover had been blown wide open? She could be God knows where. The only thing she could hope for was that Dolby for once had actually listened to something she had said and had sealed off the building when she told him to. He would not have much choice but to believe her when he had read the file Malcolm had conjured up, but she hoped he had not wasted too much time on being shocked and had done the necessary thing right away.

Even then, the damage was already done and Ros could not suppress the feeling of defeat that overwhelmed her. Ben at risk, Connie possibly on the run and the names of Harry's assets in the hands of a traitor. This could not get any worse even if she tried. Dolby may have said that within twenty minutes they would all be on their way to tell MI-5 what they knew, but the Section Chief thought it to be more likely that within twenty minutes they would all be dead. That would be half the network destroyed in one day, twenty years of intelligence work right down the drain.

'Ros, I left him down there,' Merlin protested.

_Well, then you bloody well shouldn't have_. But could she truly blame him for leaving Ben behind, even if he had run into Connie on his way to the Grid? Merlin may be a suspicious soul from time to time, especially where Arthur's safety was concerned, but sometimes he was as naïve as a new-born baby. But even then, Connie was an elderly woman; there was a limit to the damage she could do to a healthy, strong man such as Ben Kaplan. 'I won't ask again,' she said icily. 'Get Lucas out. That's an order.' Those were Harry's words, but they suited her just fine too. And she did not think she could bear it if even one more thing went belly-up. She had seen too much gone wrong today.

_Hold your horses, Myers. Ben may be perfectly all right_, she reminded herself. True, he might be, but Ros did not believe so. Maybe it was the result of having been in the security services for too long, but she had lost faith in happy endings. There were satisfactory outcomes if they were lucky, no happy endings. Those belonged in the world of fairy-tales, cheap novels and movies. They had no place in real life at all.

Merlin still looked hesitating, but the young man known as Mordred seemed to be willing to do as she asked. It was good to know that her laser look at least had effect on someone, even if it had seemed to have lost its effect on the warlock. 'Merlin, we should do as she asks.'

Ros, who saw that Merlin was preparing to protest again, cut in. 'Don't even think about it,' she warned him. Even Adam had known better than to go against her when she was talking in that way. 'You go there and you get him out. I don't care what it takes. You. Get. Him. Out. Now stop wasting time and _go_!' It was one of those unwritten rules in this job. They looked after their own because no one else was bloody well going to do it for them. But there was more to this. Lucas was more to her than just a colleague. Friends only annoy you, they had agreed, and Lucas did annoy her, an awful lot of the time, but now he was messing with her head as well, as she had claimed only family would do. _Lovers leave, friends annoy you and families mess with your head_. Lucas annoyed her and messed with her head – she had a lingering suspicion the latter had started the moment Morgana had abducted him – but he sure as hell wouldn't leave while she had a say in it. And she had.

Ros's anger finally seemed to register on his radar or maybe the combined forces of both her own and Arthur's most furious glares was enough to convince him that any further protest might have serious consequences for his health. 'I'll bring him back.'

'You'd better.' The words were coming from Arthur's lips, but it could have been Ros who had spoken them. The king just beat her to it. _And there's another one whose head Lucas has messed with. We're emotionally compromised in this, both of us. _

Jo had left some time ago to get people down to the paper archive to open the bloody door and as much as Ros dreaded to see for herself what had happened, she knew she had to. She may have failed in every other aspect of her job today, but at least for now she was still the Section Chief. She should bloody well act like one.

But it was hard. Ros knew herself well enough to know that she usually didn't bother with emotions in this job. At least she tried not to bother with them as they only made her take questionable decisions, but she had also long since known that her team was her weak spot. It had been when she had joined Yalta out of pure spite when the Americans had taken Zaf and it was only worse now that she was truly in charge, responsible for them. Ben was her responsibility as well, even when she did not like him much.

Ros prided herself in being realistic, so she would not bother with thinking that this was all a coincidence. Coincidences did not exist in this line of work. The best she could hope for in this case was Ben being knocked out and Connie making off with the evidence, but it did not seem likely. The intelligence analyst was not a strong woman physically, but it didn't need a strong person to pull the trigger of a gun.

She walked as fast as she could without actually breaking into a run. Arthur was next to her, but thank God that for once he didn't feel the need to fill the air with words like he tended to do. In fact, he looked rather pale and worried. Arthur was no friend of Ben's either, but neither were they unfriendly with one another. Arthur probably looked at him as a colleague. _Colleagues are okay_.

If only she could still believe that after today.

It seemed to take ages for the door to be opened. Jo was on the phone, trying to get Ben to answer his, but it was not answered, even if they could hear it ring on the other side of the door. The Section Chief pointedly avoided looking at her. Jo was a good woman, but entirely too naïve for this job, but today she didn't want to sink her hopes by telling her that there were none for Ben. She would have to face that reality soon enough.

The door finally opened and Ros, impatient now, pulled it open, all but shoving the security man out of the way. If she had to face this, then she had best do it right away. It was bad. Ros had known that it would be from the moment Jo had come in to tell her that the locks had been tampered with and her suspicions were only confirmed when Ben did not answer his phone and when calling his name did not have any effect either.

It was even worse than she had anticipated. When the door finally did open and she looked at the scene in front of her, she felt her blood run cold, which according to some must be quite a feat, since she had ice water in her veins to begin with. But this shocked her to the core. She had expected Ben to be shot, knocked out, maybe even strangled, but not this. She had not expected him to be lying on the ground in a pool of his own blood, his throat cut like an animal to be slaughtered.

And then she did something Ros Myers had never been known to do before: she fled. She turned on her heels and stumbled more than walked back into the corridor. _I failed_. It were the only two words in her mind and she knew them to be true. The proof of that was lying in the paper archive in his own blood, dead.

Her hands were trembling and she felt like she could faint any second now. If she had only thought about Connie's request before she sent her down, if she had only been a bit more suspicious, Ben might still be alive. But she had not been. She had as much blood on her hands as Connie for sending Ben's executioner down to him.

Her mind's eye was only too keen on replaying what she had seen over and over again. It made Ros nauseous, made her want to throw up where she stood. It made her want to scream in frustration and it made her want to kick the walls and slam the doors. But she could not. What good would it do? It would not make time turn back on itself and it could certainly not bring Ben back to life. It was too late for any of that.

She heard Malcolm come out behind her and Jo after him. The technician was shocked into silence, but Jo was weeping openly. Ros almost wished she could do the same and just for once to hell with self-restraint and her reputation of being a cold-hearted bitch, but she was beyond tears. A lifetime of suppressing them had almost made her forget how to cry. The guilt she felt throttled them at birth, guilt for not realising sooner, guilt for letting Sugarhorse be lost at the last possible second even though Harry had warned her, guilt for not recognising the warning and then there even was some sort of guilt about not liking Ben a little better than she had. Would she have been more alert to the possibility of danger if she had liked him?

She would never know the answer now. It was far too late. Death was final. There was no coming back from it.

'Ros?'

Ros could have shot Arthur for even talking to her, but that would be unprofessional. She still had a job to do and she would do well not to forget it. 'What?' she snapped, not feeling up to any polite conversation at the moment.

'You need to see this.' He sounded like a king, commanding. But there was anger there as well, a boiling rage just below the surface.

Maybe that was what prompted her to do as he asked and look at the blood-stained piece of paper he held in front of her. It must have been in front of Ben when his throat was cut; the paper was bloodied and difficult to read. But there was enough still readable to recognise the authorisation slip to access the file of Alexander Borkhovin, requested by Hugo Prince on September the twenty-third 2003.

Burning hatred mixed with ice-cold shock when she realised that Ben had found the proof they would have needed to back up Lucas's phone call, had they not found out about Operation Renaissance. He had found the evidence and had been killed for it. And the fact that Connie had not taken this with her suggested that she had no intention of staying here any longer. She just needed the time to run.

But she would not get away with this, Ros vowed. Ben had been a member of her team and she had been responsible for him. It may be too late to save his life, but it was not too late for revenge. And that might be the best way to deal with this anyway. Ros Myers was not the weepy type. She was commonly known as a cold-hearted bitch. If it was up to her, Connie James would soon find out just how cold-hearted exactly.

* * *

**I know this chapter is a day early. The reason for that is that I'll be in headless chicken mode for the better part of tomorrow and I might not have the time to put a chapter up then. Next week's will be on Saturday, as normal.**

**Next time: rescue mission in Moscow. Please review?**


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